Some of our friends couldn’t make it to November’s French dinner, so we hosted a make-up session. This time, we made duck à l’orange and vegetarian cassoulet. The duck à l’orange recipe is one Julian’s used for many years, dating back to when he was the menu planner for his co-op in grad school. It’s a streamlined version of the French classic. Canned beef consommé and orange marmalade take the place of homemade duck stock and orange glaze. It’s our traditional Christmas or Easter dinner main dish.
The vegetarian cassoulet would seem to be a contradiction in terms. In traditional cassoulet, the beans are simply a vehicle for meat/poultry and animal fat. The vegetarian version has butter as the animal fat. The recipe is from the Seattle restaurant Tilth, and appeared last fall in the Seattle Times. Mushrooms and truffles add the umami factor. I had to make some adjustments to the recipe. First, the sun-dried tomatoes had to be left out, as one of the vegetarians had an intolerance to nightshades. Finding a black truffle for shavings was out of our price range. We wound up getting some white truffle paste at a place in Pike Place Market called the Truffle Café. I also skipped smoking the beans in favor of a whiff of liquid smoke.
The main dishes were served with brown/wild rice blend and a green salad. Appetizers were cheese toasts, and the dessert was a vegan chocolate cake. The masses left well fed.
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