Garbure
A Béarn soup so thick that — as the local saying goes — in a good garbure the spoon stands upright. There is one rule for cooking it: ingredients go in one after another, by cooking time, over more than two hours. Beans and hock at the start, root vegetables in the middle, cabbage near the end, and the confit duck only on the plate, so it does not fall apart in the soup.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Soaking the beans 720 min
- Beans and hock 70 min
- Root vegetables 25 min
- Cabbage, potatoes and hock 40 min
- Confit 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneSoak the beans overnight
Cover the beans with cold water for 12 hours. Unsoaked they cook much longer and less evenly, so vegetables added on schedule would fall apart before the beans were tender — soaking here is a matter of planning, not just digestibility.
Ingredients: 300 g white beans · 700 g smoked ham hock · 3000 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 4 pcs thyme · 4 cloves garlic
Simmer the beans with the hock
Cover the drained beans and the hock with cold water, add the bay, thyme and garlic and simmer 70 minutes over low heat. The hock is the only source of salt at this stage — do not add any, as smoked meat gives up far more than you expect.
Ingredients: 300 g white beans · 700 g smoked ham hock · 3000 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 4 pcs thyme · 4 cloves garlic
Slow and long — the beans should soften, not burst.Add the root vegetables
Add the carrot, turnip, leek and onion cut into large 2 cm dice and cook 25 minutes. The large dice is not for looks: finely cut vegetables would be purée after an hour in the thick soup.
Ingredients: 3 pcs carrots · 2 pcs turnips · 2 pcs leeks · 500 g potatoes · 2 pcs onions · 700 g savoy cabbage
Add potatoes and cabbage
Add the diced potatoes and the shredded cabbage by the handful, stirring between additions. Cook 30 minutes. Cabbage goes in last because longer cooking turns it grey and lets a sulphurous note take over.
Ingredients: 3 pcs carrots · 2 pcs turnips · 2 pcs leeks · 500 g potatoes · 2 pcs onions · 700 g savoy cabbage
Cabbage by the handful, late — never at the start.Shred the hock and return it
Lift out the hock, pull the meat off the bone and chop it, then return it to the soup. Discard the skin and bone straight away, or simmer them in the soup for another 10 minutes before lifting them out — they add gelatine, which gives garbure its characteristic clinging body. Taste and season with pepper, and with salt only cautiously — the hock is salty.
Ingredients: 300 g white beans · 700 g smoked ham hock · 3000 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 4 pcs thyme · 4 cloves garlic
Crisp the confit and serve it on top
Fry the duck legs skin down in a dry pan over medium heat for 10 minutes, until the skin crisps, then turn and fry 5 minutes more so the meat heats through. Cut each leg at the joint into thigh and drumstick and set a piece on each bowl. Simmered in the soup, confit would shred into threads and lose all its texture.
Ingredients: 4 pcs confit duck legs · 1 tsp black pepper · 1 tsp salt · 8 pcs bread
Crisp skin, meat intact — added at the plate.Serve with bread in the bowl
Put a slice of country bread in the bottom of each bowl and ladle the soup over it. The bread softens and thickens the soup further — not a garnish but part of the traditional serving; in Béarn garbure was a filling one-pot meal.
Ingredients: 4 pcs confit duck legs · 1 tsp black pepper · 1 tsp salt · 8 pcs bread
Before you start
Le goudale
A Gascon custom: when a little soup is left in the bottom of the bowl, a little red wine is poured in and drunk straight from the bowl. In Béarn it is called faire goudale; elsewhere in south-west France, faire chabrot.
Instead of confit
Without confit duck, use smoked bacon fried crisp or Toulouse sausage. The point is the same: a crisp, rich piece of meat with clear structure on top of a very soft soup.
Better the next day
Garbure improves in the fridge — the flavours merge and it thickens further. It keeps four days in the fridge. Reheat slowly and always crisp the confit fresh, just before serving.
