Cassoulet is a rich, slow-cooked bean stew

Stew

A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables , meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used...

 or casserole

Casserole

A casserole, from the French for "saucepan", is a large, deep dish used both in the oven and as a serving vessel. The word casserole is also used for the food cooked and served in such a vessel, with the cookware itself called a casserole dish or casserole pan...

 originating in the south of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, containing meat (typically pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

 sausage

Sausage

A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat , mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made...

s, pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

, goose

Goose

The word goose is the English name for a group of waterfowl, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller....

, duck

Duck

Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...

 and sometimes mutton

Lamb (food)

Lamb, mutton, and hogget are the meat of domestic sheep. The meat of a sheep in its first year is lamb; that of a juvenile sheep older than 1 year is hogget; and the meat of an adult sheep is mutton....

), pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

 skin (couennes) and white haricot bean

Common bean

Phaseolus vulgaris, the common bean, is an herbaceous annual plant domesticated independently in ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, and now grown worldwide for its edible bean, popular both dry and as a green bean. The leaf is occasionally used as a leaf vegetable, and the straw is used for fodder...

s.

The dish is named after its traditional cooking vessel, the cassole

Cassole

A cassole is a conical earthenware container, glazed inside.Cassoles are still made in the traditional way at Issel, near Castelnaudary.The name originates from the French form of the Occitan word caçòla and is the origin of the famous cassoulet....

, a deep, round, earthenware

Earthenware

Earthenware is a common ceramic material, which is used extensively for pottery tableware and decorative objects.-Types of earthenware:Although body formulations vary between countries and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz, and 15%...

 pot with slanting sides.

Numerous regional variations exist, the best-known being the cassoulet from Castelnaudary

Castelnaudary

Castelnaudary is a commune in the Aude department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in south France. It is in the former province of the Lauragais and famous for cassoulet of which it claims to be the world capital, and of which it is a major producer....

, the self-proclaimed "Capital of Cassoulet", Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

, and Carcassonne

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...

. All are made with white beans (haricots blancs or lingots), which have replaced the medieval broad bean Vica fava, and duck or goose confit

Confit

Confit is a generic term for various kinds of food that have been immersed in a substance for both flavor and preservation. Sealed and stored in a cool place, confit can last for several months...

, meat and sausages. In the cassoulet of Toulouse, the meats are pork and mutton, the latter frequently a cold roast shoulder. The Carcassonne version is similar but doubles the portion of mutton and sometimes replaces the duck with partridge. The cassoulet of Castelnaudary uses a duck confit

Duck confit

Duck confit is a French dish made with the leg of the duck.While it is made across France, it is seen as a speciality of Gascony. The confit is prepared in a centuries-old process of preservation that consists of salt curing a piece of meat and then poaching it in its own fat.To prepare a confit,...

  instead of mutton. Cassoulet is traditionally topped by fried bread cubes and cracklings

Cracklings

Cracklings or crackling is a crisp, deep fried food that may be made from various animals. Pork rind cracklings are popular in the American south. The skin of all kinds of poultry are used to make cracklings, including duck, chicken, goose and game birds...

.

Cassoulet is also sold in France as a commercial product in can

Tin can

A tin can, tin , steel can, or a can, is a sealed container for the distribution or storage of goods, composed of thin metal. Many cans require opening by cutting the "end" open; others have removable covers. Cans hold diverse contents: foods, beverages, oil, chemicals, etc."Tin" cans are made...

s and can be found in supermarkets and grocery stores across the country. These cassoulets vary in price and quality. The cheapest ones contain only beans, tomato sauce, sausages, and bacon — duck and goose are expensive and thus are absent from such preparations. More expensive versions are likely to be cooked with goose fat and to include Toulouse sausages, lamb, goose, or duck confit.

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...

 versions require mixing pre-cooked roasted meats with beans that have been simmered separately with aromatic vegetables, but this runs counter to cassoulet's peasant origins

Peasant foods

Peasant foods are those dishes specific to a particular culture made from accessible and inexpensive ingredients and usually prepared and spiced to make them more palatable...

. In the process of preparing the dish it is traditional to deglaze

Deglazing (cooking)

Deglazing is a cooking technique for removing and dissolving caramelized bits of food from a pan to make a pan sauce.When a piece of meat is roasted, pan fried or prepared in a pan with another form of dry heat, a deposit of caramelized sugars, carbohydrates, and/or proteins forms on the bottom of...

 the pot from the previous cassoulet in order to give a base for the next one. This has led to stories of a single original cassoulet being extended for years or even decades.

In American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 restaurants, the term "cassoulet" is often applied to any hearty bean-based casserole, with innovations such as salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

 cassoulet.

Many culinary traditions have similar techniques for slow cooking beans in a covered vessel. Examples include Feijoada

Feijoada

Feijoada is a stew of beans with beef and pork, which is a typical from Brazilian Cuisine, is also typical in Angola, Mozambique, Goa, India and other former Portuguese colonies. In Brazil, feijoada is considered by many as the national dish...

, Fabada Asturiana

Fabada Asturiana

Fabada Asturiana, often simply known as Fabada, is a rich Spanish bean stew, originally from and most commonly found in the autonomous community of Asturias, but widely available throughout the whole of Spain and in Spanish restaurants worldwide...

, and baked beans

Baked beans

Baked beans is a dish containing beans, sometimes baked but, despite the name, usually stewed, in a sauce. Most commercial canned baked beans are made from haricot beans, also known as navy beans – a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris – in a sauce. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, a tomato...

. The Hungarian-Jewish solet and Eastern European cholent

Cholent

Cholent or Hamin is a traditional Jewish stew. It is usually simmered overnight for 12 hours or more, and eaten for lunch on Shabbat . Cholent was developed over the centuries to conform with Jewish religious laws that prohibit cooking on the Sabbath...

are similar bean dishes, and are also frequently cooked in combination with smoked poultry, especially goose leg, but a definitive relationship has not been established.