THE POT-AU-FEU: THE TRADITION HAS NOT WARES
This monument of national gastronomy crosses the ages and always meets the same enthusiasm. But its preparation should not be taken lightly: the pot-au-feu must bring together three different meats.
The playwright Goethe understood that he was dealing with an emblematic dish when he described, in Campagne de France, his discovery of the dish at a villager's in 1792. -national fire. A large iron pot was suspended from a hook, which could be raised and lowered by means of a rack; in the pot was already a good piece of beef with water and salt. We added carrots, turnips, leeks, cabbage and other vegetables,” he explains with precision.
For a stew to be successful, it must obey basic rules and prepare it with a minimum of “three meats of different tastes and textures”: lean meat such as scoter or beef cheek; a gelatinous meat, like the shank or the tail, and, finally, a fatty meat, like the main rib or the tendron, without forgetting the marrow bones.
Then come the vegetables, which are generally added thirty minutes before the end of cooking: leeks, onions studded with cloves, carrots, celery, turnips, etc. The bouquet garni completes the recipe with its sprigs of thyme and bay leaves, to which rosemary, sage or oregano can be added.
Lovers of fragrant broths start cold cooking meats by covering them with water. But to obtain tastier meats, they should be immersed in boiling water in order to trap the juices in the flesh.
Meat, vegetables and herbs will then each soak up the aroma of the other ingredients during cooking.
The pot-au-feu broth is particularly valuable: it is the basis of many poached meat recipes, such as beef à la ficelle or Asian fondue. It takes three liters of water per kilo of meat for the pot-au-feu, “skimming regularly, to obtain a clear broth”.
