la fête du cochon

	After the great winter feasts of Christmas and New Year, when the stores from the harvests are savagely depleted, it's a rural traditional in France to kill the pig you've been fattening. This provides enough
meat for the family to last until the more plentiful days of spring.

Of course, you can't eat the whole thing at once and, using preserving techniques developed long before the days of freezers, the French make sure everything is used and nothing is lost. Air-dried hams and sausages, salt-cured bacon, liver pâtés, rillettes (the delicious shredded shoulder preserved in its own fat and spread on bread), head cheeses (what we call brawn), boudin noir (the French version of black pudding) and andouillettes (called chitterlings in English and highly-prized by the French) are all testament to native resourcefulness.

January and February are the months of the year where pork comes into its own. At Francs, we dust off the Repertoire du Cochon and get traditional.

Cassoulet
This is one of the great country dishes of France - rich, filling and delicious. It's great for winter parties of at least eight people, and because accruing the ingredients and the cooking are fairly time consuming it is best prepared well in advance and at your leisure

Serves 8

• 2lb (1kg) belly of pork, rind removed and reserved, cut into large cubes
  
• Salt and pepper
  
• 8 pieces of goose confit and its fat
  
• 11/2 lb (750g) dried white haricot beans, soaked in water over night
  
• 10 cloves of garlic
  
• 1 bay leaf, thyme and 1 pinch of powdered cloves
  
• 4 tomatoes, peeled de-seeded and chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon of tomato purée
  
• 4 lightly cured top-quality pork sausages
  
• 1 ½ lb (750g) Toulouse smoked sausage

Firstly cook the pork, season with salt and pepper, in some goose fat until it is golden. Add the haricot beans, garlic, herbs, powdered cloves, pork rind, tomatoes and tomato puree. Cover the lot with fresh water and simmer gently for about 1 ½ hours.Meanwhile, brown and part-cook the sausages in some goose fat. Put to one side with the goose confit, until the beans have finished cooking. Transfer the bean preparation into a greased earthenware casserole, place the goose and sausages on top and cook in the oven for a further 20 minutes or so, until the goose has heated through, the sausages are cooked and you will have a steaming plate of golden excellence.