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Pot-Au-Feu, Au Bain-Marie
Put in an earthen pot three pounds of beef cut in slices, two pounds of fillet of veal, a loin of mutton, removing all the fat, a fowl coloured by roasting, and five pints of cold water. Add two carrots, a turnip, three leeks, and half a head of celery tied in a bundle, and an onion with a clove stuck in it. Cover the pot closely, and surround it with a rim of paste made rather soft and of flour and water only. The paste should hermetically close the cover that the steam may be retained within. Place the pot within a stewpan four inches more in width containing water, and let it boil uninterruptedly for six hours. Be careful to add boiling water at intervals to the Bain-Marie, the ebullition of which will thus always remain the same. At the end of the six hours remove the paste from the cover, pass the broth through a silk sieve, and use it for soups and consommes. This is also a stock for a family, and nourishing for persons whose stomachs are impaired by fatigue, and it may be made more refreshing if, in making, two lettuces, a handful of sorrel and chervil, picked, washed, and tied in a bundle, are added.
This is a stock recipe dressed up as an invalid's restorative: a large quantity of meat, very little water, and six hours of gentle indirect heat. The method matters more than the shopping list.
- The hinge: indirect heatThe sealed pot never touches direct flame, so the liquid inside sits just below a true boil for the whole six hours. That is what keeps the broth clear. Reproduce it with a lidded casserole or stockpot set in a wider pan of simmering water, or simply hold a covered pot in a 275-300F oven and check that it never bubbles hard.
- The flour-and-water pasteA luting paste of flour and water only, rolled into a rope and pressed around the lid, seals the pot so no steam escapes. It is not eaten and is discarded at the end. Two layers of foil crimped tightly under the lid do the same job.
- Quantities and yieldThree pounds of beef and two of veal, plus a loin of mutton and a whole fowl, to five pints (about 12 cups) of water is a very rich ratio by modern standards. Because the pot is sealed, the yield is close to the water put in, less whatever the meat holds; it should set to a jelly when cold. Halving everything works without changing the method.
- A loin of muttonMutton is sheep of two years or more by most definitions, stronger and fattier than lamb, and often hard to find outside halal and specialist butchers. A lamb neck or shoulder gives a milder version; the instruction to strip all fat still applies, since the pot is sealed for the whole six hours and cannot be skimmed while it cooks.
- A fowl coloured by roastingA boiling fowl was an older laying hen, tough and full of flavour. Use a 4-5 lb chicken, or a carcass and legs, and give it 20-25 minutes in a 425F oven first. The colouring is for flavour and for the amber tint of the broth, not for cooking it through.
- Silk sieveA fine-mesh strainer lined with damp muslin or a coffee filter does the same thing. Ladle rather than pour, and do not press the solids, or the clarity gained over six hours is lost in a minute.
- No salt in the originalNone is called for. The broth is a base for soups and consommes that would be seasoned later, and Victorian invalid cookery tended towards bland food, though the recipe itself gives no reason. Season at the point of use.
- The green additionLettuce, sorrel and chervil go in as a tied bundle with the other vegetables. Sorrel is sharply acidic and will dominate if you use more than a small handful; chervil loses its scent with long cooking, so a second pinch stirred in at the end is worth the trouble.
- Cooling and keepingCool the strained broth quickly in a shallow container, refrigerate, and lift off the set fat the next day. It keeps three or four days chilled, or freezes for months.
Pot-au-feu is the standing pot of French domestic cooking, meat and root vegetables simmered together and served as broth first and boiled meat after. What is given here is the grand kitchen's version of it, cooked au bain-marie — in a water bath, a technique whose name is generally traced through medieval alchemy to a figure called Mary the Jewess, and which cooks adopted because water cannot exceed its boiling point and so cannot scorch what sits in it. The sealed pot is the point: nothing evaporates, so nothing needs replacing, and the broth emerges concentrated and clear rather than cloudy from agitation. The closing line about persons "whose stomachs are impaired by fatigue" places the recipe squarely in the Victorian invalid-cookery tradition, where strong meat broth was regarded as near-medicinal and was fed to the sick, the convalescent and the overworked in preference to solid food.