4 Legs "confit de canard" 850 g Small white onions 1 tb Sugar

900 ml Poultry stock 8 sm Stalks celery Pepper

4 1/2 kg Broad beans (1kg shelled) 750 g Poitrine sal=E9 150 g Rind with 6mm fat 1 Leek trimmed 5 Cloves garlic 250 g Confit fat =20

Gently warm the confit to allow the legs to be removed. Take out the legs and scrape the fat off them. Weigh out 250 g of the fat in which the legs were confit and put it in a casserole large enough to hold all the ingredients. Shell beans, discarding the pods. Skin 170 gm of the beans and keep them separate. Remove skin and gristle from the poitrine and discard them. Blanch the poitrine 10 mins in plenty boiling water. Refresh, drain and dry. Cut into large cubes (about 4cms across). Peel onions and garlic. Wash celery stalks and chop two of them. Trim and clean leek, and tie it into a bundle with the remaining 6 celery stalks. Simmer pork skin (couenne) about 10-20 mins in plenty of water until pliable. Drain it, roll it up and tie. =20

Heat the fat in the pan and saut=E9 the whole onions for about 5 mins stirring more or less continuously until they are lightly coloured all over. Add the poitrine sal=E9, give it a few grinds of pepper and continue to cook, stirring, for a further 5 minutes or so. Stir in the sugar and the peeled beans. Stir in carefully, cover pan and cook beans slowly for 10 minutes.

Mix remaining beans, garlic, chopped celery and rolls of skin. Add them to the casserole, stir once to mix with the onions and poitrine cubes. Tuck the bundle of leek and celery into the centre, add the stock - there should be enough just to cover. Bring to the boil and skim.

Cover with greaseproof paper, reduce heat to very low and simmer gently without stirring. If the liquids boils at all hard, the beans will disintegrate. Cook thus for 1=BD hours. Meanwhile steam the duck confit for about 10 minutes, or reheat covered at lowest setting of microwave. Remove and discard skin and fat from meat and take meat off bones. Keep meat warm, covered to keep moist. Pre-heat oven to 300 F 150 C gas 2.

When simmering time is up, take from heat, and remove beans etc from the pan with a slotted spoon. Discard leek and celery bundle. Slice pork skin rolls fairly thinly and after unrolling, put the strips fat side down in the bottom of a large ovenproof casserole, large enough to hold the cassoulet. Defat the cooking liquor and return the beans etc to the casserole. Add just enough cooking liquor to cover beans, bring back to the boil, cover and bake in the oven 1=BD hours. After 20 mins, skim off any fat, and add further liquid, if needed. After 1 hours baking time, remove cover to allow a crust to form on top. Serve very hot.

The cassoulet reheats very well.