<< Christmas 2009

12/23/09 - Cassoulet for Christmas

This year was a cassoulet year at Casa Kaleberg. (We alternate cassolet and choucroute garnie every other Christmas.) That's a photo of our Christmas cassoulet on the right. Cassoulet, if you've never had it, contains white beans, duck confit, pork loin, ham hocks, pig skin, garlic sausages, andouille and a host of other pork products. It's an amazing dish. Just making the duck confit, that is, duck preserved in its own fat with spices, is a fair production, and it takes several days just to cook and assemble a cassoulet.

We tried to get a shot of the whole cassoulet, but our guests moved in too quickly, so enjoy this action shot.

This year we got our pork from the folks at The Swinery, a butcher shop based in West Seattle. They get their pork from a number of local farmers, and we have to say that the meat is first rate. They didn't blink when we asked for pig's knuckles, and they came through with a first rate piece of pig skin. We tried their Toulouse sausages and were quite impressed. You can see some of them in the photo above. The Swinery is based out in West Seattle, so now we have to explore more of West Seattle, and we have to try out The Swinery's new sandwich shop near Pioneer Square. If you live in Seattle and hear oinking in 2010, that might just be a couple of Kalebergs on the march.

Keywords: christmas, seattle, kale