Family pièce de résistance (the single Sunday meal dish)
Sunday Pot-au-Feu
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A piece of beef and a few marrow bones poached very slowly with root vegetables in a clear, fragrant broth. First the broth is served, then the meat and vegetables topped with coarse salt and enlivened with cornichons and strong mustard.
Family pièce de résistance (the single Sunday meal dish)
A piece of beef and a few marrow bones poached very slowly with root vegetables in a clear, fragrant broth. First the broth is served, then the meat and vegetables topped with coarse salt and enlivened with cornichons and strong mustard.
You see, I know no dish that better expresses what I call duration than this pot-au-feu. It does not hurry: you leave it by the fireside, and time itself, hour after hour, composes its flavor—nothing here is fabricated, everything ripens. At our table, we skimmed with almost religious care, for a cloudy broth would have been considered negligence; then we served the broth alone first, in deep plates, and the meat came afterward, accompanied by its coarse grey salt and a few cornichons. Believe a man of the study: the clearest thought often comes from the simplest meal.
Ingredients
- •Beef gîte and short ribs — a fine piece for the household (poaching meat)
- •Marrow bones — a few pieces (richness of the broth)
- •Carrots, turnips, leeks — one bunch of each (broth vegetables)
- •Onion studded with cloves — one (aromatic)
- •Coarse salt, peppercorns, bouquet garni — to taste (seasoning)
How it was made : In the early 20th century, the pot-au-feu cooked on a cast-iron stove or coal range, sometimes all morning. The broth was reused the next day as consommé or to moisten a soup; nothing was wasted, a cardinal virtue of bourgeois domestic economy.
Sources : Auguste Escoffier, Le Guide culinaire, 1903 · La Cuisinière bourgeoise (tradition Menon, reprints 19th c.)