Cassoulet Sources Local Ingredients and a Chef From Washington, D.C.

Gilbert Clerget of Washington D.C., winner of the 2014 Cassoulet Cookoff, with judge Amy Zavatto of Edible Magazine.
Gilbert Clerget of Washington D.C., winner of the 2014 Cassoulet Cookoff, with judge Amy Zavatto of Edible Magazine.

This past weekend, we hosted our Sixth Annual Cassoulet Cookoff, and our kitchen will be featuring a winter menu that includes a rotation of cassoulet from the weekend’s events. Some of the cassoulets will include:

1. Red Ale Braised Pork and duck breast with Duck skin cracklins
2. Confit of local chicken, heritage turkey wings, sausage and bacon ends
3. Vegetarian cassoulet with roasted butternut, Brussels sprout leaves, and mushrooms
4. Tuscan inspired all-pork cassoulet: braised shoulder with bacon and sausage, rosemary and tomato
5. Brazilian: black beans, chorizo, beer braised pork belly and black bean braised shoulder

Our winter menu also includes the Pig & Pickle Sandwish (smoked ham, local pickles, cheese and mustard), our award-winning grassfed burger, and shrimp & grits.

Winter beers include Barrier’s Dunegrass DIPA and Riprap Baltic Porter, Stoudt’s Revel Red, Greenpoint Harbor’s Antifreeze, and Great South Bay’s Sleigh Ride Rye.

At Sunday’s cookoff, Washington D.C. took the NYC People’s choice and judges’ awards as Gilbert Clerget won with his Cassoulet de Castelnaudary. Guest chef and Culinary Muse Annette Tomei created a “Cassoulet Log” (a cool video about it can be viewed from The Experimental Gourmond, here).

Cassoulet elicits interesting responses from our friends and customers. It was a great opportunity to work with local farm sourcing. For example, Jen Grossman from NRDC sourced guinea hens from Mauer’s Mountain Farm (Livingston Manor, NY); Paul Dench-Leyton of Violet Hill Farms (West Winfield, NY) provided his belle rouge chickens; our beans were sourced from Regional Access; and Heritage Foods USA sourced regional turkey wings, bacon ends, pork shoulder, and leaf lard.