Pot-au-feu: Jules Goufle's instructions for making it - Gouffe's instructions for braising - Baeuf a la mode - Vegetable Soup - Author's directions for beef - tea - Table of French equivalents for the English words denoting fish, as a guide in writing menus - Table showing when fish is in season - Children's dinner tables - Author's receipt for cheap, nutritious soup - The dinner of the working man, and Mr. Atkinson's suggestions respecting it.

The Pot-au-feu.

The pot-au-feu or pure beef stock, flavoured with vegetables, has long been regarded as the type of a foundation stock for soup - making by all the great leaders of French cookery, for a century or more. The broth obtained by the process is known as bouillon; and the portion of meat being maintained intact, not torn or cut in pieces, was in former days invariably served after it as a hot dish to be eaten, bouilli, containing as it did a good deal of nutritious matter not to be extracted by hot water, but obtained by the consumer through the action of digestion in the stomach. Such is still the habit of the French peasant and artisan, and is unquestionably the most complete and economical mode of extracting all the nourishing qualities of the meat.

But the pot-au-feu, for modern purposes, now appears in any society, however cultivated, as a valuable and agreeable, clear soup, and the process of making it will be given with all necessary details. These are shorter and more simple than the extremely full directions given by Gouffe', in his classical work "Le Livre de la Cuisine," which in previous editions of the present volume were translated at considerable length.*

Take an ordinary gallon stock - pot of copper tinned, with a cover for occasional use only. Ingredients: 2 lbs. of good fresh lean beef from the leg, with 3/4 lb. of bone; six ounces each of carrots, turnips, leeks, and onions, one of celery and two of parsnips; a clove stuck in an onion, and a small bunch of kitchen herbs, parsley, thyme, and chervil; a rather small teaspoonful of salt; four and a half pints of water.

Crush the bones well with a mallet, putting them into the pot first. Cut the meat into small morsels, an inch or a little more each way, removing all the fat, and laying them on the bones. Next, pour in all the water cold; and place the pot without its cover on the corner of a steady gentle fire or gas ring. Add the salt, and bring gently to the boil. As soon as the scum rises, remove it with a perforated spoon, and when the liquor boils, pour in a small cupful of cold water to check it and make the scum rise. Bring it slowly again to boiling at least twice, scumming and checking with cold water as before each time, which should suffice. Meanwhile, having sliced the vegetables named, now add them to the pot, which again checks the boiling for a time. When it begins again, draw the pot aside so that it now only simmers, which it should continue to do for three or four hours. But the vegetables and herbs should be removed and set aside when the former are well cooked, after which they must not remain in the pot, the meat only remaining until the end of the process.

* J. Gouffe, "Le Livre de la Cuisine," pp. 39 - 47. Paris: 1867. Thus he writes: "The production of a goodpot-au-feu seems to me to be one of those operations, at the same time elementary and fundamental, with which it is of the highest importance to render every one familiar, as soon as domestic cooking is treated of" (v. p. 299).

The liquor is now to be poured off into a perfectly clean vessel until cold, and any fat thereon removed. It ought to be clear, with an agreeable odour and colour. The quantity of soup resulting should be diminished about one-third by the process, and should suffice for six or eight persons.

It is generally served at table now with a few full - sized thin slices of freshly cooked carrot, turnip, and leek, in which case it would be more properly termed a la paysanne. The addition of a rather thin slice of the crust of a loaf, one to each plate, constitutes it a croute au pot.

The bouillon, or good clear beef - broth, produced by the pot-au-feu, is the basis of all brown soups. And a decoction of veal and veal bones, with fowl and vegetables as before, similarly treated in all respects, is, or should be, employed as the basis of all white soups, clear ox purees, A consomme' is a stronger decoction of meat than the bouillon, with a fuller body and flavour. Compared with the receipt for the pot-au-feu, and using the same quantity of water, beef bones, and vegetables there required, add half the weight of veal (meat and bone) as that of the beef, and proceed in all particulars of boiling, skimming, simmering, etc., as for the pot-au-feu. It is to be presented perfectly clear when finished, and, if necessary, must be clarified in the usual manner (for which, see a good cookery manual).

Or a consomme may be made by using the beef bouillon in place of water, adding the additional veal recommended above, and repeating the process of the pot-au-feu just referred to. For a consomme of game, adopt the pot-au-feu process, together with grouse, partridge, or hare, as preferred in weight, at least equal to half the weight of stock meat used. For a consomme of fowl, adopt the same process as above advised, but with a proportionately increased weight of veal and fowl, to the water used for the white bouillon above, together with vegetables deemed appropriate.