Pot au Feu (aka, my boys ate fennel!)

On Tuesday I went to a cooking class at Williams-Sonoma. I went to one two weeks ago on Latin American food, and it was really good. This week's wasn't as good, but then I went and made one of the recipes last night, and it was really good - better than the one we made in class, probably because I added my own twist to it.

The recipe is called Pot au Feu, which is a french recipe using an inexpensive cut of beef and cooking on low, very slowly to make it tender. It's similar to a pot roast. My Pot au Feu was very tasty, and the BOYS even ATE it! Not only did they like the beef, they both ate leeks and fennel and parsnips!
This is Ben about to eat a slice of fennel - and he LIKED it. He ate several slices of it, and declared it his favorite vegetable.

Here is Alek, about to eat fennel! He liked it too, but not quite as much as Ben.

Back to Ben, eating more fennel!

So, let me share my magic recipe with you. I'm definately going to make this again.

3 lb chuck roast

wine (I used Raven's Wood Zinfandel - a hearty red)

worchestershire sauce

Salamida's Pinch (a seasoning blend that we absolutely LOVE, from upstate NY)

15 oz can fire roasted tomatoes, diced

1 T dried thyme

3 carrots

1 fennel bulb

2 parsnips

2 leeks

I prepared the roast by sprinkling a side with Salamida's Pinch, then using the pointy side of my meat tenderizer to puncture it all over. Then, I poured worchestershire sauce on that size, and pressed it again with the mallet. I find grocery store beef is rather gray and flavorless, and the addition of the wochestershire sauce makes the beef more flavorful. I treated the meat on both sides this way.

In my cast-iron enameled pot, I dumped the can of tomatoes and spread them across the bottom, laid in the beef, then poured about a cup of wine overall. Into the oven it went, at 275 degrees for two hours.

I chopped all the vegetables in to 1" sections, and put them on top of the beef/tomato/wine mixture and put it all back in the oven for another hour.

At the end of the 3 hours, the pot contained a great amount of broth, tender beef, and tender veggies. I served the beef by cutting it into 1/4 inch slices, next to the veggies, and with some sourdough bread.

I strained the broth, and saved the leftovers of beef/veggies/broth overnight. Today I made Pot au Feu soup! And the kids ate it again! I used all the leftovers, chopping them into smaller pieces, and also cooked 1 cup barley in 4 cups beef broth from bullion. I put the two together, added more Salamida's Pinch and some fresh cracked pepper. DELISH!

And it was a hearty warm soup for this dark and dreary day!