A real cassoulet is made with tarbais beans! Aficionados of this quintessential Southwestern dish may disagree, but not Bernard Aymès, the Revel chef of the Hôtel-Restaurant du Midi. That's what he repeated this Monday, 30 January, at the hotel school in Toulouse. Alongside seven other chefs from the region, he took part in a cassoulet tasting organised by the Haricot Tarbais trade association. "I only make my cassoulet with tarbais beans, because I want it to have a certain consistency," he explained. "A quality cassoulet is, above all, a broth in which you can really feel the tarbais bean soaking up all its flavours, keeping its bite and texture." The Revel chef even revealed a few secrets. "The tarbais beans can be soaked the night before in a bath of cold water roughly three times their volume, with an optional pinch of food-grade bicarbonate of soda, overnight."
A short history of cassoulet
After training at the hotel school in Carcassonne and gaining experience in Switzerland, Bernard Aymès took over from his parents at the Hôtel-Restaurant du Midi in Revel. Chef of this establishment for 40 years, he has known how to adapt his cooking to the needs of an evolving clientele. Yet his "bourgeois cuisine" remains true to his exacting standards and his love of local produce. And cassoulet is, of course, on the menu. "It's a popular dish that has also evolved over the years. Served as a main course or a starter, we've reinvented it according to tastes and trends," he explains. "When it was first created, cassoulet was a simple, practical dish that could be cooked ahead of time. It was then taken to the baker's to be gratinéed, keeping alive a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages." It's clear that for chef Bernard Aymès, cassoulet is far more than just a dish that must appear on the menu of his Lauragais restaurant. "To me, cassoulet is a culture, a tradition in my family. It's the dish that made me want to become a cook. And cassoulet with tarbais beans is a delight for the ears when you hear it sizzling as it cooks, for the eyes when you see it come out of the oven, and of course for the taste buds when you eat it."
La Dépêche du Midi — Official website