I made Kenji’s [traditional French Cassoulet recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/traditional-french-cassoulet-recipe) this evening for dinner. It was delicious but had a couple of not-insignificant issues:
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1. I used fresh duck legs (Rohan duck – it’s what’s available at the store around here) and they remained somewhat cartilaginous after the 1.5 hours of cooking
2. After nestling the duck legs with skin exposed into the mixture in my 5.5 qt Le Creuset, there was not enough surface area remaining to get a really nice crust – the little bits of bean that poked through definitely had it (the homemade chicken stock I used practically turns to Jell-O in the fridge).
Curious if others encountered these issues, or (as is likely) there’s nontrivial operator error on my behalf.
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by LordOfTheFelch
4 Comments
I also made the cassoulet tonight and had the same experience with your second point. I used chicken so don’t have a comment about your duck.
IME (which is limited and not to do with this cassoulet), duck like pheasant has a lot of cartilage and kind of – structure – in the legs.
Every time we get duck legs I either smoke or confit them and then I freeze the smoked ones and shove the confit ones to the back of the fridge until needed.
Kenji’s recipe uses chicken or duck CONFIT, which is already cooked. Raw duck legs will take even longer to cook than dark meat chicken. I would probably par roast them separately before adding them. Or just cook the whole thing longer.
Fresh duck legs and duck confit are different things. If you have fresh legs, you’ll need to cook them fully before putting them in the cassoulet