Name: The ‘Pot-au-Feu’ Pot-au-Feu
Yield: For four people
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 30 g (1 oz) coarse salt; 3 litres (5¼ pints) stock made by dissolving 3 chicken stock cubes in 3 litres (5¼ pints) water; pickled onions; 4 unpeeled 4 cm (1½ inch) lengths of cucumber, deseeded; 4 peppercorns; gherkins; ¼ young green cabbage, washed; 4 very small potatoes, peeled; ¼ head of celery, trimmed and washed; 4 small leeks, trimmed and washed; 8 miniature carrots and 8 miniature turnips made from about 100 g (3½ oz) of each sort of normal-size vegetables, cut into strips and ‘turned’; 80 g (2¾ oz) French beans, topped and tailed; 250 ml (scant ½ pint) cold water and ¾ teaspoon coarse salt; 8 large slices beef marrow, 1 cm (½ inch) thick, soaked overnight in cold water; 8 tablespoons Tomato Sauce; 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) flat rib of beef on the bone cut into four pieces; 15 g (½ oz) butter; 1 whole head of garlic, unpeeled; horseradish sauce; coarse salt; ½ onion, unpeeled, browned under the grill; 1 litre (1¾ pints) cold water; 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) ox-tail, cut into four joints; 300 g (10½ oz) fat salt pork; mustard; ½ onion, unpeeled, stuck with a clove; Freshly-ground pepper; 4 preserved ducks’ legs; 1 small bouquet garni; 4 small slices French bread

Preparation info

For
four
people

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Cuisine Gourmande

By Michel Guérard

Published 1978

About

‘The warming generosity of a universally well-loved dish’

Ingredients

Main ingredients

3 litres (5¼ pints) stock made by dissolving 3 chicken stock cubes in

Method

Cooking the meat and vegetables

Bring the stock, seasoned with salt and pepper, to the boil in a large earthenware marmite or stewpot and plunge in the beef, oxtail, 2 onion halves, celery, whole head of garlic and bouquet garni. Skim carefully as soon as the scum starts to rise to the surface and keep skimming at intervals as long a