Pot-au-Feu (1868)
Reader ratingsJules Gouffé’s everyday pot-au-feu of 1868: a piece of beef and a bone simmered for hours with carrot, onion, leeks, turnip, parsnip and celery into a clear broth, with the boiled beef kept for another meal.
- Recipe makes
- About 56 fl oz of broth with the vegetables, 4 servings, plus about 1 lb boiled beef and 24 fl oz broth kept for the sauce
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Allow about 30 minutes to bring the pot up slowly while you skim, then about 4 hours at a bare simmer. Keep the beef and 24 fl oz of the broth for the Boiled Beef with Sauce Piquante.
Pot-au-feu: the broth served as soup, and the boiled beef on a platter.
The story behind the recipe
“Beef Broth is the soul of domestic cookery,” Jules Gouffé wrote at the head of the first chapter of his cookbook, and he meant the pot-au-feu, the pot of beef and vegetables kept at a slow simmer that gave a French household its soup, its stock for sauces and its boiled beef.
Five centimes a bowl
The siege put a full pot like this out of reach of many households. By November the city ran cantines économiques, Henry Labouchere wrote, “where a mess of soup made from vegetables and a small quantity of meat can be bought for five centimes.” He doesn’t say how the canteens made it. The recipe here is Gouffé’s everyday pot-au-feu of 1868, the household soup that canteen bowl stood in for. From October the meat in any pot was more and more often horse, and in January Labouchere described a family boiling a small piece of it in water for a soup that had to last them three days. The canteens, the horse tariff and the bread ration all have their place in What Did Paris Eat Under Siege in 1870?
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Gouffé’s small pot
Gouffé was chef de cuisine of the Paris Jockey Club, but he began his book with ordinary cooking and with “persons of very moderate incomes” in mind. He gives two pots. The small one takes a pound and a half of beef from the leg or shoulder and a quarter pound of bone, and he weighs every vegetable, down to half an ounce of celery and one ounce of parsnip. He would not add garlic: “it imparts too strong a flavour to the broth.” Nor would he boil it for longer than the meat needed. Asked whether seven or eight hours would make a better broth than five, he answered, “By no means.”
Making it today
This follows his small pot-au-feu in his order, in an Imperial 3½ quarts of water. We put in half his salt and season the broth at the end, which is where he adds any more. We leave out the burnt-sugar caramel he used to color the broth golden, which he says doesn’t make it “really better.” His remarks warn against leaving the vegetables in after they are cooked, so they come out once tender and go back in at serving time.
The beef that comes out of the pot is the start of the next day’s Boiled Beef with Sauce Piquante (1868), which needs both the meat and about 24 fluid ounces of this broth.
Beef Broth is the soul of domestic cookery; it constitutes the most nutritious part of daily food. ...
Recipe makes: About 56 fl oz of broth with the vegetables, 4 servings, plus about 1 lb boiled beef and 24 fl oz broth kept for the sauce
Ingredients
For about 56 fl oz of broth with the vegetables, 4 servings, plus about 1 lb boiled beef and 24 fl oz broth kept for the sauce. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for about 56 fl oz of broth with the vegetables, 4 servings, plus about 1 lb boiled beef and 24 fl oz broth kept for the sauce.
Meat and water
- Beef bottom round or chuck, in one piece1.5 lb
- Beef bones, sawn into pieces4 oz
- Cold water3 1/2 UK quart
- Salt0.5 oz
- Cold water, for skimming7 1/2 fl oz
Vegetables
- Carrot (1 medium)5 oz
- Onion (1 large)5 oz
- Clove1
- Leeks (2 to 3), trimmed and washed7 oz
- Celery (1 small inner stalk)0.5 oz
- Turnip (1 medium)5 oz
- Parsnip (1 small piece)1 oz
To serve
- Salt
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1.5 lb beef bottom round or chuck, in one piece
- 4 oz beef bones, sawn into pieces
- 3.5 qt cold water
- 0.5 oz salt
- 7.5 fl oz cold water, for skimming
- 5 oz carrot (1 medium)
- 5 oz onion (1 large)
- 1 whole clove
- 7 oz leeks (2 to 3), trimmed and washed
- 0.5 oz celery (1 small inner stalk)
- 5 oz turnip (1 medium)
- 1 oz parsnip (1 small piece)
- Salt
Equipment
- Stockpot of at least 8 quarts
- Kitchen string
- Skimmer or large spoon
Fine sieve- Warm soup tureen or bowls
Instructions
Tie the beef into a neat shape with string. Put the beef bones in the bottom of the stockpot and the beef on top. Add the cold water and the salt.
Set the pot over medium-low heat and bring it up slowly. When it is nearly boiling and the scum rises, skim it off, then add a third of the cold water for skimming to bring up more. Skim again, and repeat until you have used all of it and the liquid is clear, about 30 minutes in all.
Stick the clove into the onion. Add the onion, carrot, leeks, celery, turnip and parsnip. When it returns to a boil, lower the heat so the broth barely trembles, and set the lid ajar; don’t seal the pot.
Simmer for about 4 hours, skimming off the fat from time to time. Lift out the vegetables as soon as each is tender, after 1 to 1½ hours, and keep them covered.
After 3½ hours, test the beef with a skewer. When it goes in easily, lift the beef onto a dish.
Strain the broth through the sieve and skim off as much fat as you can. Set aside about a third of it, with the beef, for the sauce piquante. Taste the rest and add salt only now.
Cut the vegetables into pieces, warm them in a little of the broth, and serve the broth hot in bowls with the vegetables. Keep the beef for the boiled beef: cool it in a little of the reserved broth and refrigerate it.
Nutrition
130calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 56 fl oz of broth with the vegetables, 4 servings, plus about 1 lb boiled beef and 24 fl oz broth kept for the sauce
- Servings
- 4
Estimated per serving of broth and vegetables from USDA FoodData Central values; the beef is counted with the Boiled Beef with Sauce Piquante.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Gouffé’s larger pot-au-feu doubles the beef and adds 2 quarts of water; give it about 5 hours and test the beef with a skewer.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Gouffé names leg or shoulder of beef; bottom round and chuck are the closest modern cuts. In Paris in 1870 horse often took the place of beef; where horsemeat is sold, it can be cooked the same way. Cool the broth quickly, refrigerate it, and use it within 3 days. Contains celery.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Jules Gouffé, The Royal Cookery Book, trans. Alphonse Gouffé (London: Sampson Low, 1868), Pot-au-Feu, or Beef Broth
Recipe details
- Course
- Soup
- Dish family
- Soups & Broths
- Region
- French
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Main ingredient
- Beef
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Everyday meal
- Season
- Winter