Pot-au-Feu

Name: Pot-au-Feu
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients: 6 carrots, roughly chopped; 6 peppercorns; 900 g/2 lb silverside of beef (or topside); small pickled onions; freshly grated horseradish; 1 x 600 g/1 lb 5 oz oxtail, cut into thick pieces; cornichons; 1 bouquet garni; sea salt and freshly ground black pepper; 4 leeks, white and light-green parts only, roughly chopped; 900 g/2 lb shin of beef, in one piece; 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped; 3 large onions, halved, one half studded with 3 cloves; 2 tomatoes, halved; 1 head of garlic, left whole; 2 bay leaves; 3 sprigs of thyme; 1 sprig of celery leaves; 2 beef marrowbones (optional) – get the butcher to saw them in half or quarter them, depending on the size of your pan; 4 parsley leaves, stalks and, if possible, roots, too – all tied together in a piece of cheesecloth); a small bowl of sea salt; 1 baguette, sliced; 175–200 g/6–7 oz Gruyère, grated; Dijon mustard; English mustard

Preparation info

Serves
8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Let's Eat

By Tom Parker Bowles

Published 2013

About

If ever three words were imbued with Gallic history, pride and delight, they are pot-au-feu. For this is no mere stew, rather a cornerstone of French cuisine, a dish that spans regions and classes like some meat-scented Colossus. ‘In France,’ wrote no lesser an authority than Auguste Escoffier, ‘the pot-au-feu is the symbol of family life… A good pot-au-feu will always be a comfortable and thoroughly bourg