Garbure Gasconne

Ingredients

• 250 g dried Tarbais or haricot beans
• 1 smoked ham hock or ham bone, about 600 g
• 2 confit duck legs
• 1 onion, studded with 2 cloves
• 3 carrots, cut into chunks
• 2 turnips, quartered
• 2 leeks, thickly sliced
• 1 small green cabbage, cored and shredded
• 4 potatoes, cut into large dice
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 bouquet garni of thyme, bay and parsley
• Black pepper
• Stale country bread, to serve

Before you cook

• Soak the beans in plenty of cold water overnight, then drain them
• Peel and cut all the vegetables, keeping the cabbage and potatoes separate
• Scrape most of the fat off the confit duck legs and keep 1 tablespoon of it

Steps

1. Put the drained beans, the ham hock, the clove-studded onion, the garlic and the bouquet garni in a large pot with 3 litres of cold water.
2. Bring to the boil, skim off the foam, then lower the heat and simmer gently for one hour with the lid ajar.
3. Add the carrots, the turnips and the leeks and cook for 30 minutes.
4. Add the cabbage and the potatoes and cook for a further 30 minutes, until everything is completely tender.
5. Lift out the ham hock, pull the meat from the bone in shreds and return the meat to the pot.
6. Heat the reserved duck fat in a frying pan over medium-high heat.
7. Fry the confit legs skin side down for six minutes, until the skin is crisp and blistered.
8. Pull the duck meat off the bones in large pieces, keeping the crisp skin separate.
9. Stir the duck meat into the soup and simmer for five minutes to warm through.
10. Crush a few of the potatoes against the side of the pot with a spoon to thicken the broth.
11. Season generously with black pepper, going easy on salt because of the ham.
12. Ladle into deep bowls over a slice of stale bread and top each with a shard of crisp duck skin.