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Hoche Pot (One pound of fresh pork one)
One pound of fresh pork, one pound rump (flank) of beef, one pound rump of veal, two onions, one celery, four leeks, two or three carrots, two or three turnips, according to the size, a few Brussels sprouts, five or six potatoes, according to the number of persons. Let the water boil before putting in the meat, and cut all the vegetables in cubes of the same size, like cubes of sugar. Let simmer only, for three hours; it is delicious and makes a dinner.
A one-pot boiled dinner of three meats and root vegetables, written for a cook who already knows what a stockpot is. The instructions are thin but the two that matter are stated: boiling water at the start, and a bare simmer thereafter.
- Never let it boil after the meat goes inThree pounds of meat held at a rolling boil for three hours will be stringy and the broth cloudy. Bring the water to a boil, add the meat, then drop the heat so the surface barely trembles for the rest of the cooking.
- "Rump (flank) of beef"The parenthesis looks like an editorial gloss on a Belgian cut for English-speaking readers, though rump and flank are not strictly the same thing. Any well-worked braising cut suits: flank, brisket, chuck or shin, in one piece rather than cubed.
- Rump of vealVeal rump is a special order at most butchers now. Veal shoulder or breast behaves the same way over three hours, and a veal shank adds body to the broth.
- Fresh pork"Fresh" here means uncured, as opposed to the salt pork and bacon that dominated the larder. Shoulder or a piece of belly is closest to what was meant; loin will dry out.
- Vegetable timingThe recipe implies everything goes in together, which will reduce the potatoes and sprouts to mush. Onions, celery, leeks, carrots and turnips can go in for the last hour; potatoes for the last 30 minutes; Brussels sprouts for the last 8 to 10, or cooked separately and added at the table.
- Uniform diceThe instruction to cut the vegetables into sugar-cube cubes is not decoration. Even dice cook at the same rate, and the broth can be served as a soup course before the meat, as such pots often were.
- SeasoningNo salt, pepper or aromatics are listed. Salt the pot early so the meat seasons through; a bay leaf, a few cloves and a bundle of parsley stalks would not be out of place in a pot of this kind.
- Yield and serviceThree pounds of meat feeds six to eight. Serve the strained broth first, then the meat sliced on a warm platter with the vegetables around it, with mustard and coarse salt.
Hochepot — hutsepot in Flemish — comes from the old verb meaning to shake or jostle, the same root that gave English "hotchpotch" and "hodgepodge": a dish of many things shaken together in one pot. Ghent in particular claims it, traditionally with pig's ears and trotters among the meats. This version, with three named cuts and no offal, has been smoothed for the audience the book was written for: The Belgian Cook Book was assembled during the First World War from recipes sent by Belgian refugees, and is often said to have been sold in aid of relief, so the dishes were rendered in ingredients an English household could actually buy. The insistence that it "makes a dinner" is the point of such a pot — broth as first course, meat and vegetables as the second, on one fire.