This weekend’s joint of meat was two duck legs, bought from the Gartmorn Farm stall at the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market a couple of weeks ago. As there’s only two of us in our household, we often find that cooking two duck legs is far too much meat for us – so I used just one of the duck legs in this cheap and easy recipe for a non-traditional cassoulet.
I love cassoulet because the beans (butter beans and cannellini beans) are a really good source of protein as well as being filling, and cooking this meal for a long time in the slow cooker means that you don’t have to pre-soak the beans, and the duck meat just falls off of the bone! The carrot and sweet potato give a great sweetness which offsets the warmth of the chilli, and a couple of rashers of smoked bacon pretty much seasons the cassoulet for you.
This really is a super-easy recipe, just so long as you have a slow-cooker and a good few hours to wait! These quantities will serve 2 comfortably, and if you add a couple of pieces of brown bread (as we did) you’ll even have leftovers.
Cheap & Easy Duck Cassoulet
Print recipe | Serves | 2 - 4 |
| Prep time | 30 minutes |
| Cook time | 3 hours, 30 minutes |
| Total time | 4 hours |
| Meal type | Main Dish |
| Misc | Freezable, Pre-preparable, Serve Hot |
| Region | French |
| By author | Carley Hollis |
Ingredients
- 150g butter beans
- 100g cannellini beans
- 1 duck leg ((preferably organic))
- 2 Rashers smoked bacon
- 2 small onions (diced)
- 2 carrots (chopped into rounds)
- 1 sweet potato (chopped into chunks)
- 1 red chilli
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons tomato purée
- 100ml red wine
- 400ml chicken stock
- 1 beef stock cube
- 1 handful spinach
Directions
| Step 1 | |
| Heat a large frying pan to a high heat and place the duck leg into the pan, skin size down. Whilst the duck browns, add in the chopped up bacon rashers and fry until crisp. Once all bacon has been fried off and the duck is coloured on both sides, remove from the pan. | |
| Step 2 | |
| Dice both onions along with the chilli and garlic, and fry off in the remainder of the duck fat. Once the onions have softened, add the tomato purée and red wine and allow to reduce. | |
| Step 3 | |
| Place the cannellini beans and butter beans into the slow cooker along with the hot chicken stock, chopped carrot and chunks of sweet potato. Add the onion mixture, as well as the beef stock cube and stir well. Finally, place the chopped bacon and duck leg into the slow cooker and place on the highest heat from around 3 hours. | |
| Step 4 | |
| After around three hours, the beans should be soft and the meat will be falling from the bones of the duck. Carefully flake the meat from the duck bones and add a handful of fresh or frozen spinach. Allow the spinach to wilt for 2 - 3 minutes before serving with crusty bread. | |
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[...] weekend has seen me make a brilliant duck cassoulet - and I also have a second duck leg to use this week. The rest of the meat is sat in the freezer [...]