Pot-au-Feu — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

The grand ancestor of French home cooking — beef and marrow bones simmered for hours with root vegetables, leeks, and herbs, yielding a crystal-clear consommé and fork-tender meat.

Ingredients

1kg beef short ribs
500g beef chuck
2 marrow bones
4 leeks, trimmed and halved
4 carrots, peeled and halved
4 turnips, peeled and quartered
4 potatoes, peeled and halved
1 celery root, peeled and quartered
1 onion studded with 4 cloves
Bouquet garni (thyme, bay leaf, parsley stems)
Coarse salt, black peppercorns

Instructions

1 Place beef and marrow bones in a very large pot. Cover with cold water. Bring slowly to a simmer, skimming scum constantly.
2 Add the clove-studded onion, bouquet garni, peppercorns, and coarse salt. Simmer very gently (barely bubbling) for 2.5 hours.
3 Add carrots, turnips, celery root, and leeks. Continue simmering 45 min until vegetables are tender.
4 Add potatoes in the last 25 min.
5 Remove meat and vegetables to a warm platter. Strain the broth through a fine sieve.
6 Serve in two courses: first the clear broth in bowls with toast, then the sliced meat surrounded by vegetables with coarse salt, cornichons, and mustard.

Did You Know?

King Henry IV of France declared that every family should have a "poule au pot" (chicken in the pot) every Sunday — pot-au-feu is the beef version of that democratic ideal.