Thursday, April 18, 2013

Pot au Feu? Pot au Yu!

Let's just say that French isn't a forte despite my infinite love of French food.

Pot au feu is a dish my mom taught me in the haste before a child leaves for university, when it hits a mother that said child might literally starve to death from not knowing how to operate the microwave. Super easy, warm and great for when you have a cold. Granted she does it a bit differently, I thought in mine and Ben's new journey to healthier eating, that I'll give it a go myself.


I trotted around Waitrose looking for as many root vegetables as I can, and grabbed some pork shoulder meat for £2.99, a packet of £1 button mushrooms, two potatoes and this amazing bag for £1.38 which contained an onion, a leek, 3 carrots, a swede and a parsnip. Bargain (or 'bargs' as I'm tempted to call it).

I chopped whatever would fit in our biggest pot and two cloves of garlic in to chunky bits and chucked them in with enough water to just cover all the pieces. I put it on a medium heat and stuck my head into our cabinet from time to time after tasting, and dunked in whatever I thought would taste good with it - some pork flavouring powder, basil, paprika, mixed herbs and of course our dear friends pepper and salt. It's key to adjust to and keep in mind that the longer it cooks, the flavours in the pork and veg will seep out and add a bit more depth.




Served with the garlic pizza bread (also from Waitrose), this turned out to be a very warm, easy, filling and cozy meal. No wonder pot au feus and other stews (poet and not knowing it!) were often seen as 'poor people' food - it's cheap, easy, warms you right up and lasts forever (I'm sat here eating it for lunch, it has a richer flavour - and there's more left in the pot!). It also doesn't even matter what you put in it.. perfect for a lazy beggar like myself.
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