After I get through all of my summertime Culinary Ridealong series, I tend to take a break from French, Italian (and now Spanish) cooking for a while. It can be a bit much, essentially 90 days of non-stop country-specific cuisine. But, I inevitably find myself coming back to the big three. How could I not? They’re classic and delicious and embrace that which I truly love: slow-cooking. The kind of recipes where you draw out the maximum flavor of your ingredients to somehow become greater than the sum of its parts. November is slow-cooking month and since winter decided to bombard us right after Halloween, I made Potée, a French pot roast of sorts featuring pork, which originates from the Savoie region. I paired this up with a lovely white burgundy wine. If you want to go lighter than this pork-centric meal, you can try it’s lighter and more subtle cousin: Poule au Pot.
Potée
You will need a large stock for this dish. I used my 9 qt. dutch oven.
1.5 lbs boneless pork shoulder, cut into rough half-pound chunks
Smoked ham hock (or 3 smoked turkey necks)
1.5 lbs kielbasa
4 onions
2 bay leaves
3 garlic cloves, peeled
Kosher salt
Peppercorns
4 whole cloves
4 leeks, white and light green part only, keeping root-end intact, but trimming wiry roots
6 small potatoes, scrubbed
6 carrots, peeled and cut into thirds
4 medium-sized turnips, scrubbed
2 smoked sausages, like andouille or garlic sausage
Small head of cabbage, cored and quartered
Place all of the pork into your largest stock pot (or dutch oven), along with the bay leaves, garlic, 2 tbsp of kosher salt, a few peppercorns and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat and reduce to slowly simmer for about 2 hours. While the pot heats up, slice the pointy end off of your onions and insert the clove into the opening. Place 1 onion in the pot and reserve the others.
After 2 hours of simmering, add the remaining ingredients into the pot, but for the cabbage, along with more boiling water to fill the pot. Bring back to a boil over medium heat and lower to medium-low and continue cooking for about 40 minutes.
Add the cabbage and cook for another 10-15 minutes, until the cabbage has just softened. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
Carefully remove the pork shoulder and carrots from the pot, along with the remaining sausages. Increase the heat and bring to a full boil to reduce the liquid for another 10 minutes. Adjust for any seasoning needs.
While the stock is reducing, slice the sausages into rough 2-inch pieces and place around the edge of a roasting pan. Break apart the pork shoulder and hock meat into bite-sized chunks and place the meat in the middle of the pan. Store in the oven to keep warm while the stock reduces.
When ready to serve, remove the pan from the oven, and place the vegetables into the roasting pan. Using a ladle, pour the reduced stock over the meat and vegetables. Serve, adding freshly cracked black pepper to each dish.
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Copyright 2021, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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