Pot au Feu
On Sunday morning I cooked Pot au Feu, or should I say, I started cooking Pot au Feu.
It should be ready tonight. We’ll also eat it tomorrow. Then, what’s leftover will be turned into soup!
Pot au Feu has to be one of the easiest meals to cook – and one of the most economical, as well.
The secret with pot au feu is to use the cheapest cuts of beef and cook them slowly, very slowly.
My neighbours will cook Pot au Feu one day to reheat and eat the next – it needs that extra day to taste just right.
I started with a very cheap cut of beef that I found on special offer at the local supermarket. It was Plat Cotes.
Plat Cotes de Boeuf is the meat that comes from the underside of the shoulder of a cow. It has the right combination of meat to fat (all important for the taste), loves being cooked slowly and is one of the most affordable cuts of beef that you can buy.
I put the meat into a large pan and added chopped carrots, garlic, chopped onions, celery, leeks (from the Girlie’s garden) and turnips (also from her garden).
Into a steamer pan that I put on top of this, I added chopped cabbage, more onions and carrots. Finally, in another steamer pan, I added chopped potatoes.
With the lid on top, the potatoes and cabbage are slowly steamed and any vegetable juices fall down into the bottom pan – nothing is wasted – that’s the way it should be.
I season with pepper and salt and Coleman’s Mustard powder – Herbs de Provence get added nearer the end of the cooking.
I don’t really think that there’s any right way or wrong way to make Pot au Feu – it’s probably best to be guided by what is cheap in the market or supermarket and start from there. I personally like celery in mine – don’t forget that the upper parts of the stalks (the bits we normally chuck away) taste lovely in a salad – try it out yourself.
I can’t remember when I bought my first steamer set (i.e. 3 pans that stack one on top of another) – I do know that when I first moved here, and had to cook on a Baby Belling, I couldn’t have lived without one.
Eating and Making Soup
The three of us will get two good meals out of this pot au feu that cost far less than 10 euros for the ingredients.
We also only use one burner on the stove.
When we are sick of this nutritious meal (which for me, is never), the Girlie will get out her new toy – a food mixer – and turn the leftovers into a beautiful country soup.
What we don’t eat straight away will get frozen for a later date.
The beauty of Pot au Feu is that nothing gets wasted – it might not be the poshest meal in town, but then…. the Girlie and I don’t do posh!
All the best
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