How to cook with a whole head of garlic?

[msully72]

Hi - I'm trying to do this recipe I found at the William-Sonoma site:
Thomas Keller's Slow-Cooker Cassoulet


It's a cassoulet, which I'm cooking in a dutch oven instead of a slow cooker.

One of the ingredients is "1 garlic head, halved crosswise" which is simply added with the rest of the ingredients before the long cook time. Then you remove it after everything is cooked. How the heck do I do that? Do I peel off all the paper I can? Will the paper 'flake off' and get in the rest of the food?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[ChefJune]

Don't peel the skin off the head. Just slice it horizontally with your chefs knife. Some of the papery skin will flake off, but you want the halves to hold together, at least when you're starting out.

 

[msully72]

Thanks! That's pretty much what I tried to do (I posted when I started to cook, and realized I didn't know what to do!), but the head fell apart a bit when I tried cutting through it. So it's in more than two pieces, and I did add a couple of loose cloves on top that I did peel. If the recipes a keeper, I'll know what to do next time.

Thanks again,
Mike

 

[msully72]

One more follow up, if anyone is still reading - should I try to keep the bulb on top of the stew? Or is it ok to get mixed up in it and then fish it out later?

 

[mike in brooklyn]

You might wrap the cut head of garlic in a coffee filter or
cheesecloth to keep the paper from getting into the stew.

 

[mike in brooklyn]

are you going the complete cassoulet method - cooking the
duck in its own fat?

 

[msully72]

I think this is cassoulet in name only - it's a recipe I found on line at Williams-sonoma (I can't post links yet, but you can find it under the recipes tab on their site, with the name Thomas Keller's Slow-Cooker Cassoulet.)

It actually calls for pork shoulder, seared in bacon grease, and cooked with Chorizo. I couldn't find the Chorizo though, so I went with Portuguese Chourico instead.

 

[nyccook]

same cooking times in dutch oven?

Hi - I am trying to make the same recipe but also planned to use a dutch oven since I don't have a slow cooker. For how long did you cook it in the dutch oven, and at what temperature?

Thanks for your help.

 

[msully72]

Hi - I am trying to make the same recipe but also planned to use a dutch oven since I don't have a slow cooker. For how long did you cook it in the dutch oven, and at what temperature?

Thanks for your help.

I cooked it for roughly 7 hours at 200-225. About 5.5 hours into the cooking, my roommate needed the oven (how selfish, right? ) so I took the dutch oven out and let it simmer on the stove top for 45 minutes, then back in the oven. One word of warning, since it was simmering, I stirred it occasionally, which caused the garlic head to break up. I got most of it out but had a bit of 'paper' in a few servings.

The results were excellent. They would have been perfect if I realized soaking the beans was not the same as de-gassing the beans.

 

[nyccook]

Thanks! I'd actually considered using canned beans (maybe draining and rinsing) - bad idea?

 

[msully72]

Thanks! I'd actually considered using canned beans (maybe draining and rinsing) - bad idea?

I don't know enough about cooking with beans to tell you - though with such a long cooking time they might soften too much.

 

[Scotch]

Cooked that long, most the garlic is usually going to dissolve into the sauce. I wouldn't worry about trying to keep it in one piece.