Name: Pot au feu
Yield: For 4
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 200 g turnips, peeled but left whole if they are the size of medium potatoes, cut into chunks if very big; French mustard and cornichons, to serve; About 12 medium potatoes, peeled but left whole; 300 g carrots, cut in 4-6 cm pieces, and halved if they are very thick; 4 marrow bones, 3 cm long (optional); 2 onions, skins on, studded with cloves; 2 large leeks, or 3 medium ones, green tops removed; 1.5 kg rib, shoulder or leg of beef (ask your butcher to tie the meat with string); Salt; 1 bouquet garni

Preparation info

For
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Nobody Does it Better

By Trish Deseine

Published 2007

About

The pot au feu has been simmering beside French fires and atop stoves for centuries. Essentially a beef and vegetable stew, traditionally served in two stages: first as soup, a dark and flavoursome consommé; and then as a hearty dish of boiled beef with poached vegetables accompanied sometimes by a marrow bone with croûtons. French mustard, gros sel (cooking or coarse sea salt) and cornichons are the traditional condiments.

Threatened with extinction by the 21st-centur