I revise my classics: the pot-au-feu
When we take out the recipe from pot au feu, that only means one thing: the cold is there! Family and gourmet, this dish warms the most cautious and delights all taste buds. But before starting to cook, we must glean here and there all the ingredients. The choice of meat is essential: such as our favorite Masterchef candidates, we will have to revise the different parts of the beef, or trust our butcher. In our shopping bag you will have a gelatinous piece (hock, tail, twin to pot au feu), a thin piece (scoter, cheek or chuck), a melting piece (flat-of-coast, back row) and the indispensable bone marrow.
This is why, on the way to the early harvest or our favorite picking farm: garlic, leeks, carrots, cabbage, turnips, potatoes and celery are invited to the party. For herbs, prepare a bouquet garnished with thyme, bay leaf and parsley and one or two cloves.
Careful preparation
Your precious booty is on the work plan, now it is to prepare it before the final bath. We rinse and string the meat, we brush and peel vegetables in need. We tie the bouquet garni to recover it easily at the end of cooking. Leeks also benefit from special treatment: to prevent them from melting, they are tied with a string.
Tip: poke the cloves in the onions, it will be easier to find them and remove them from the dish.
The secrets of cooking
But the ultimate secret of the pot au feu lies in the cooking order of the meat and different vegetables. It's here meat who opens the ball. In a casserole or a Dutch oven, it will simmer in 5 liters of water for 2 hours with peeled onions and cloves. Every half hour, remove the scum that forms on the surface so that the broth is clean.
1h10 of cooking later, it is the turn of the carrots, turnips and bouquet garni to make their entry. The dance accelerates: 10 minutes later, the cabbage joins the party. And 10 minutes later, the leek dives in turn in the big bath. The bone marrow is put 10 minutes before the end, wrapped in muslin to prevent them from emptying.
And the potatoes, are you going to tell me? They are cooked separately because they leave the skin.
Before tasting, remove the bouquet garni, onions, cloves and all the strings! Everything is served with pickles and coarse salt. And when you master this classic, you can explore its variants: pot au feu duck or pot au feu trout ...
Trick : to give your broth a nice amber color, make a caramel with a ladle of broth and sugar that you pour back into the pot.
