🇫🇷 France · nationwide, home cooking
Pot-au-feuFrench boiled beef stew
France's classic boiled beef pot: beef (two or more cuts, with bones) simmered with leeks, carrots, turnips, celery and onion, giving a broth that is served as a soup course and the meat and vegetables served separately with coarse salt, mustard and cornichons.
Origin and history
Pot-au-feu is a classic of French home cooking, and one of the oldest and most popular French dishes according to American press coverage. Goethe described seeing the 'national' pot-au-feu in 1792, a big iron pot of beef, water and salt with carrots, turnips, leeks and cabbage added, and Brillat-Savarin soon after defined it as beef boiled in lightly salted water. Its two outputs, broth and boiled meat, are the heart of the dish.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 4 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 45 min
Ingredients
- 1 kg2.2 lb beef brisket or plate (flanchet), tied
- 700 g1.5 lb beef shank or short rib on the bone (jarret, macreuse), some bone is essential
- 2 marrow bones, optional, wrapped in cloth
- 3 litres3 quarts cold water
- 2 onions, one studded with 2 cloves, one halved
- 4 carrots, peeled, halved
- 4 leeks, washed, tied in a bundle
- 2 turnips, peeled, quartered
- 2 celery stalks
- 6 waxy potatoes, peeled; cooked separately
- 1 bouquet garni, thyme, bay, parsley stalks
- 1 tsp black peppercorns
- coarse sea salt, Dijon mustard, cornichons, crusty bread, to serve
Method
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1. Put the beef and bones in a large pot, cover with the cold water and bring slowly to a boil over medium heat.
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2. As grey foam rises, skim it off repeatedly for the first 20 minutes, until the surface stays clear.
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3. Add 1 tablespoon of coarse salt, the peppercorns, bouquet garni and the studded and halved onions. Lower to a bare simmer (about 90 °C / 195 °F), partly covered, for 2 hours.
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4. Add the carrots, leeks, turnips, celery and the wrapped marrow bones, if using, and simmer for 1 hour more, until the vegetables are tender and the meat yields to a knife.
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5. Meanwhile boil the potatoes in a separate pot of salted water for about 25 minutes, so the broth stays clear.
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6. Lift out the meat and vegetables onto a warm platter, moisten with a ladle of broth and cover.
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7. Strain the broth through a fine sieve and skim off the fat. Season to taste.
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8. Serve the broth first in warm bowls with bread, then the sliced meat and vegetables with coarse salt, mustard and cornichons.
Notes
- Use at least two cuts, one lean and one on the bone; the sources suggest brisket, shank, blade, cheek or oxtail, and bones to enrich the broth.
- The meal can be split across two days: the sliced meat and vegetables with coarse salt and mustard first, and the broth reheated the next day and served in cups or bowls with bread or toast.
- Some cooks add small diced vegetables to the broth for the last hour, or float toasted bread on it; in Lyon, sausages are cooked in the pot.
- Leftover meat is good cold in a salad or in a parmentier (hachis parmentier).
- Whether the meat should start in cold or in boiling water is a long-running debate; cold water, used here, gives a richer broth.
Adapted from Christian Science Monitor, on pot-au-feu and Love French Food, Pot-au-feu.
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