Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #15: Kinda Sausage Cassoulet
This is our 15th cooking/blogging experiment from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals… and the FIRST ONE we actually managed in UNDER 30 MINUTES! It’s “Kinda Sausage Cassoulet, Warm Broccoli Salad, and Meringues.” We picked it because we had the episode; it seemed like a good wintery choice; and we had a lot of the ingredients on hand. I was also carb-loading for my long run, so BEANS YAY.

Substitutions: We used a can of tomatoes rather than passata. (Jamie suggested that substitution on the show.) The Snook doesn’t like broccolini, so we used regular broccoli instead. For the dessert, we had mini meringues instead of big ones, and we used frozen raspberries instead of fresh. Everything else was as-written.

Quick verdict: Woohoo, 28:52! It helped that the cassoulet was basically a one-pot dish and the dessert is just assembly. But still, this is by far the fastest meal we’ve found in the book. Also, it’s pretty tasty and it makes HEAPS of leftovers. We were surprised how good the cassoulet turned out given how little cooking time it has. The “dressing” on the broccoli seemed weird when I was making it, but it’s actually really nice and I can see myself using it again. Overall we both rated it 9 out of 10! Read on for a photo essay of the preparation.Pre-start prep: We got out all the necessary ingredients, tools, and cooking vessels. We also needed the food processor for this one. The kitchen was clean (well, as clean as it gets) and everything wiped down and ready to go. The oven was turned on to 220C and the kettle was boiled. We had a big roasting tray for the cassoulet, a saucepan for the broccoli, and an oven-safe frying pan for the sausages.

First up are the ingredients for the cassoulet: smoked bacon, red onions, rosemary, sage, bay leaves, leeks, chipolata sausages, bread, garlic, tomatoes, butter beans, and cannellini beans.

Just a few things for the broccoli salad: broccoli, red onion, garlic, tomatoes, lemon.

Lastly the dessert ingredients: raspberries, honey, Greek yoghurt, meringues, and lemon curd.

Pots and pans, ready to go. The big roasting pan is on the heat for the cassoulet. The frying pan is for the sausages, and the saucepan is for the broccoli.

The food processor is fitted with the chopping blade to turn the bread into bread crumbs.

Here we go! Step one is to chop up your bacon and fry it with some oil in the roasting pan. Note: It pays to get really nice bacon for this dish, since it provides a lot of the flavour. We got the stupidly expensive $8 bacon at Harris Farm but we both agreed it was worth it in the end.

I put the chipolatas in the hot frying pan with oil to start colouring them.

Next the Snook chops red onions…

…before adding them to the bacon.

The browned sausages go into the oven for 8 minutes to finish cooking. (The handle is oven-safe metal, but we put foil on it to remind us that it’s hot so we don’t grab it by accident.)

Now Snookums chops the leeks.

The leeks go into the roasting pan as well.

For bread, we used the leftover end from a seed loaf the Snook had baked the day before. It goes into the food processor with salt, pepper, oil, sage, and garlic.

Meanwhile, I’ve started the dessert by mushing up some raspberries with honey and yogurt. That goes into the fridge.

The meringues go into glasses with lemon curd on top, with final preparations to be done right before eating.

Snookums whizzes his breadcrumbs.

I start the weird broccoli salad dressing by grating part of a red onion into the serving bowl.

Back to the cassoulet, the Snook adds the canned beans.

The alarm goes off to indicate the sausages are cooked! They come out of the oven.

Tomatoes and herbs have been added to the cassoulet.

Now for the weird part of the dressing: I’m grating tomato flesh and turning it into tomato “slush.” The skin and seeds get discarded.

The cassoulet veg is done cooking, so it’s time for the final steps. The Snook lays down a layer of breadcrumbs.

The sausages get nestled on top.

The rest of the breadcrumbs get sprinkled over.

Oiled sage leaves are put on top, and the whole thing goes into the oven. (This is where I noticed an unfortunate resemblance to the Kitty Litter Cake. Oh well.)

Lemon juice gets added to the dressing. (We obeyed our new rule of only using half as much lemon as Jamie says. It worked out a lot better.)

Raw garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper are mixed in to make the finished dressing.

Time to cook the broccoli. I cut it into long spears to mimic the broccolini used in the book.

It doesn’t cook very long, then it gets drained.

The broccoli then gets tossed with the dressing. And now that’s done!

The cassoulet has come out of the oven and is now finished.

Here’s the completed meal of Kinda Sausage Cassoulet with Warm Broccoli Salad.

To finish the dessert, we topped the meringue and lemon curd with the raspberry yogurt, honey, and extra raspberries to garnish.

Tasting notes: The cassoulet was excellent. Definitely don’t skimp on the bacon though; the smokiness really made it special. It also makes HUGE portions and we’ve got lots of leftovers for lunch. The warm broccoli salad was a nice accompaniment. We normally just eat it steamed with a little olive oil, so this made for a refreshing change. I’ll remember that trick. The dessert was a little sweet for the Snook’s taste, but it was tasty. I also like that it looks special despite only taking like 3 minutes of actual work. Overall we both rated this meal highly – 9/10 – and we’re still high-fiving over finishing in under 30 minutes. This one’s a winner!

Stay tuned for another recipe from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals!