Cassoulet, S’il Vous Plaît

Latham’s newest hotspot, Scarlet Knife, boasts an impressive program of live music and elegant wine dinners that lures new customers to its expansive dining room—but the main event is the food, including Executive Chef Paul Dimm’s duck cassoulet. Throwing a dinner party? This savory show-stopper—the recipe serves 10—will make your evening one to remember.

Ingredients:

5 Whole ducks, portioned

Directions:

• Trim the legs for confit.

• Keep the bones for brown duck stock.

• S et aside the breasts for searing.

• Pull off the chunky fat for rendering.

Ingredients:

1 lb Coarse ground duck

1 lb Coarse ground pork chuck

1/3 cup Dry white wine

5g Garlic, finely chopped

10g Kosher salt

1/4 cup Fresh parsley, chopped

8g Ground black pepper

1/3 tsp Ground nutmeg

Hog casing

Directions:

• Cut the meat into strips for grinding. Mix the salt, garlic and all the spices together and toss with the meat. Chill 4 hours or overnight. Along with the grinding press, everything needs to be cold; the meat can almost be frozen.

• S oak the hog casing and rinse with warm water.

• Grind through your meat grinder using the coarse die. Use an ice bath to keep the farce cold while grinding.

• Take out your big mixer’s medium bowl and add ground meat and wine with the paddle attachment. Mix for 90 seconds— just enough for it to marinate a bit and bring out the seasoning. Let it rest in the fridge for an hour.

• Stuff the sausage into the casings all at once. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting and spinning it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, the other direction.

• Hang the sausages in a cool place for 4 to 12 hours to dry the casings and set the sausage. Sausages you plan to freeze need to dry longer.

Brown Duck Stock

Ingredients:

4 Duck carcasses, lightly trimmed of fat

1/2 gallon Rough chop mire poix, sautéed tender or roasted in some duck fat

Thyme to taste

1 Bay leaf

Garlic to taste

2 gallons Water

Directions:

• Roast the duck bones until brown with some tomato paste.

• Combine with other ingredients.

• Simmer 6 hours and strain.

Cassoulet

Ingredients:

2 lb White navy beans, soaked

1 gallon Medium diced mire poix

¼ cup Garlic, chopped fine

1/4 cup Fresh thyme, chopped

¼ cup Marjoram

1/4 cup Parsley, chopped

2.5 gallons Roasted duck stock

1 lb Smoked ham or smoked pork belly

10 Toulouse duck sausages (See above)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

• Soak the beans for at least 8 hours.

• Sauté the mire poix lightly with some duck fat; sear the duck sausages.

• Add the marjoram, thyme, parsley, beans, smoked ham or pork belly and stock.

• Cook covered in oven for 1.5 hours at 325 degrees.

• After 1.5 hours, add in the sausages.

• Cool in the oven overnight and portion. CRL

Russell Hallabrin of Iron & Grass (ironandgrass.com) chophouse in Hudson is jonesing for spring (who isn’t?). To toast the rising temps and impending blooms, let’s raise our glasses to his #Yuzusreadyforspring cocktail.

Ingredients:

2oz Stubbornly Different gin

1oz House-made blood orange shrub

.5oz Lemon

.5oz Simple syrup

Fever Tree Sparkling Lime & Yuzu soda

Directions:

• Shake gin, shrub, lemon and simple syrup with ice.

• Pour into a tall glass and top with sparkling soda. CRL

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