Colorado Cassoulet

And now we move on to the main course. I'm not that good a cook, in fact Jon usually does the cooking, but this dish was unexpectedly: PERFECTION!

We cook duck once or twice a month, then have half a duck left over the next day. Sometimes we maked duck salad, or put it in pasta, or just eat it standing up, quack, but then sometimes I make an improvised cassoulet and it's alright but only just. (Has nothing to do with Julia Child style recipes for cassoulet.)

At City Market Jon said why not make it with dried black eyed peas instead of the canned beans I usually use. In L.A. black eyed peas cook in a couple of hours, so I thought, why not?

It took a day and a half for those rock hard rockin' black-eye peas to soften up in simmering water. (Turned them off over night.) By morning I'd added to the large sauce pot:

• A chopped onion
• A chopped red pepper
• chopped carrot
• chopped celery
• half a can of chopped green chilis
• chopped parsley
• two bay leaves
• splash of worcestershire sauce
• can of chopped tomatoes
  
• half a duck
• weird stuff at hand like dabs of old spaghetti sauce, vermouth, and a glob of last week's turkey consomme.

By dinner time the duck had fallen off the bone, the beans were soft, and the flavor was exquisite. I didn't bother putting a buttery bread crust on it. What the flavor most resembled was chili verde, which is made with pork. It was very satisfying. Maybe this is why people buy crock pots, but I don't have one.