Wow. I never had the courage to try something like a cassoulet, and I was never quite sure I would like the finished product anyways. Your tweaks look mighty tasty though -- I'm looking forward to the weekend to see how it turns out.
My "cooking" tonight wasn't even real cooking, but it did spread out over a couple of days, so without further ado I give you...
La-Z-Man Muffuletta !!
Day One
Dump the following into a strainer, then into some kind of resealable container(s):
28 ounce jar of Hot Pickled Vegetables
28 ounce jar of Stuffed Green Olives
8-ish ounce jar of Sweet or Sweet/Sour Cocktail Onions
28-ounce jar or 2 14-ounce cans of sliced black olives
If you're into peperoncito (sp?) peppers put a bunch of them in too; I cut the tops off and drain them first.
Chop a few cloves of garlic and add to the olive mix. If any of the pickled vegetables are really big then cut them up and put back.
Mix well, then cover (or at least 1/2 cover) with a mixture of olive oil and vegetable oil. Using more olive oil tastes better, but the vegetable oil lets you take the resulting olive salad out of the fridge and use it without having to wait a few hours for the olive oil to turn back into a liquid. Put in the fridge and come back in a day or 20.
Day Two (three, four, five...)
Take the olive salad out of the fridge and let it warm up enough that the oil is liquid. Cut a loaf of Italian bread, or fresh crusty Kaiser rolls, in half. Pick out a bit of the bread in the middle to make room for the good stuff.
Put a good layer of olive salad, including oil, on both sides of the bread. Yes, that means almost completely covering the bread with olives, onions, peppers. You want the oil to soak into the bread a bit but you don't want the bread to disintegrate.
Add a layer of Hot Genoa Salami, Regular Mortadella and Regular Capicollo to one half of the bread. Add a layer of Provolone cheese to the other half of the bread. Push the meats into the bread gently with the palm of your hand then invert onto the cheese-covered half. Press sandwich together. Hardcore eaters will wrap the sandwich in wax paper and leave it for a while to soak, but I don't do that.
Cut in half (kaiser) or four (Italian loaf) and enjoy. Done properly it is a bit messy, kinda spicy and extremely tasty. It also looks extremely odd when you cut it in half.
Last edited by bridgman; 03/09/07 02:57 AM.
