MeatLes Viandes

Soak the cut potatoes in cold water for twenty minutes to wash out surface starch, then dry them thoroughly on a cloth — wet potatoes spit violently in hot fat.

Blanch the chips in fat heated to about 140°C (a cube of bread browns slowly, in around 90 seconds) for six to seven minutes until pale and soft but not coloured. Lift out, drain, and rest at least ten minutes; this can be done well ahead.

Salt the steaks generously on both sides and leave uncovered at room temperature while you finish the chips. Pat dry again just before cooking — a dry surface is what browns.

Get a heavy pan properly hot: a drop of water should skitter and vanish in under a second. Add the oil, lay the steaks away from you, and do not move them.

Sear 2–3 minutes a side for a 2.5 cm steak to reach saignant, turning once. Add nothing to the pan yet. Transfer the steaks to a warm plate, tent loosely with foil, and rest for five minutes — see the doneness table above.

While the steaks rest, raise the fat to around 190°C (a bread cube browns in 20–30 seconds) and fry the chips a second time, two to three minutes, until deep gold and crisp. Drain, salt at once.

Tip most of the fat from the steak pan, leaving a thin film and all the browned residue. Add the shallots and cook gently until soft, about three minutes, scraping the base with a wooden spoon.

Pour in the wine, raise the heat, and let it bubble hard until reduced by half — this is déglacer, deglazing. Add the stock and reduce again by roughly half, to a light, glossy consistency that coats the spoon.

Off the heat, whisk in the cold butter a cube at a time until the sauce turns glossy and slightly thickened — this is monter au beurre, mounting with butter. Do not return it to strong heat or it will split. Add any juices pooled under the resting steaks.

Season the sauce, plate the steaks whole or sliced against the grain, spoon over the sauce, and serve with the chips at once.

Crack the peppercorns coarsely: sit the flat of your chef's knife over them and rock the heel of your hand down onto it once or twice, or crush with the base of a saucepan. You want split, not powdered, pepper.

Salt the steaks, then press both sides firmly into the crushed pepper until well coated. Leave to sit ten minutes.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan until nearly smoking. Sear the steaks 2–3 minutes a side for saignant, then rest on a warm plate, tented, while you make the sauce.

Off the heat, away from any flame, add the cognac to the pan. Return to low heat and let it warm and reduce by half, scraping up the fond — it will bubble hard but should not need to be set alight to cook off; thirty seconds of simmering does the same job safely.

Add the butter and shallot, soften gently for two minutes, then stir in the cream and mustard. Simmer until it coats the back of the spoon, three to four minutes.

Season with salt, return any resting juices to the sauce, and pour over the steaks to serve.

Salt the steaks and bring to room temperature. Sear in hot oil, 2–3 minutes a side for saignant, then rest tented on a warm plate.

Pour off excess fat, keeping the fond. Soften the shallots and garlic in the residual fat over low heat, three to four minutes, without colouring.

Add the wine and thyme, raise the heat, and reduce hard until almost syrupy — by about three-quarters, roughly ten minutes. This concentration is what separates the sauce from a thin gravy.

Add the stock and reduce again until it coats a spoon lightly, five minutes more. Discard the thyme sprig.

Off the heat, whisk in the butter a piece at a time until glossy. Stir in the parsley and any resting juices, and check the seasoning — good wine needs little salt but usually wants some.

Slice the steaks against the grain, spoon the sauce generously over, and serve immediately while the sauce is still glossy.

Salt the chops well and bring to room temperature. Sear in hot oil, about four minutes a side, until deeply golden and the internal temperature reaches roughly 63°C at the bone. Rest, tented, ten minutes — pork carries over more than beef.

Pour off most of the fat, leaving the fond. Soften the onion in what remains, five minutes, until translucent.

Add the wine, raise the heat, and reduce by half, scraping the base of the pan.

Add the stock and simmer to reduce by about a third, until lightly thickened, roughly eight minutes.

Off the heat, whisk in the mustard — do not let mustard boil hard, or it turns bitter and loses its bite. Stir in the gherkins and butter, season, and return the chops to the sauce for a minute to warm through.

Serve with the sauce spooned over, and mashed potato or braised lentils (see Petit Salé, below) alongside.

If starting raw, rub the pork all over with the coarse salt, wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours; this is the traditional petit salé, "lightly salted." Rinse well before cooking. Ready-salted pork or a piece of unsmoked bacon joint can be used as it is.

Place the pork in a large pot, cover generously with cold water, and bring slowly to a simmer, skimming the grey foam that rises in the first ten minutes.

Add the studded onion, halved carrots and bouquet garni. Cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar, and simmer gently — the surface should barely tremble — for about two hours, until a knife slides into the pork with almost no resistance.

Forty minutes before the pork is ready, ladle out about a litre of its poaching broth into a saucepan. Add the lentils and simmer, uncovered, thirty minutes, until tender but still holding their shape — lentils do not need soaking.

Meanwhile soften the diced onion, carrot and garlic in the butter in a separate pan, eight minutes, and stir this into the cooked lentils along with a ladle more broth if they look dry.

Lift the pork out, slice thickly, and serve on the lentils with a little broth spooned over. Season the lentils at the end, not before — the broth is already salty.

The day before or morning of, drain the soaked beans, cover with fresh water in the pot, add the bouquet garni and the two whole garlic cloves, and simmer gently, uncovered, for 45–60 minutes until tender but not collapsing. Salt only in the last ten minutes — early salt toughens the skins. Set aside in their liquid.

Heat the oven to 220°C. With the tip of a paring knife, cut small deep slits over the lamb and push a garlic sliver and a small rosemary tip into each. Rub the whole leg with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Scatter the onions and carrots in a roasting tray to form a rough bed, and sit the lamb on top — this keeps the underside from stewing in fat and flavours the vegetables at the same time.

Roast at 220°C for 20 minutes to colour the surface, then lower to 180°C and continue roasting: about 15 minutes per 500 g for pink (rosé), or 20 minutes per 500 g for well done, using the doneness table above as your guide — a 2.2 kg leg wants roughly 65–90 minutes total past the initial sear.

Lift the lamb onto a board, tent loosely with foil, and rest a full 20 minutes — a leg this size needs it more than any steak. Do not skip this; a leg carved too early loses far more juice than the extra ten minutes of visible steam suggests.

Tip the tray juices and vegetables into a saucepan, add the wine, and simmer hard for five minutes, mashing the vegetables lightly to thicken. Strain if you want it smooth, or leave rustic.

Reheat the beans in their liquid, drain, and toss with a little olive oil and chopped parsley if you have it. Carve the lamb in thin slices against the grain and serve with the beans and the pan juices.

Heat the oven to 150°C. Dry the beef chunks thoroughly with a cloth — wet meat steams instead of browning. Fry the lardons in the oil in a heavy pot until golden and their fat has rendered; lift out and set aside.

Brown the beef in the same fat, in batches so the pot is never crowded, until deeply coloured on all sides. Do not rush this stage — it is most of the flavour of the finished dish. Set the beef aside with the bacon.

In the same pot, soften the sliced carrots and onion for eight minutes, then add the garlic for a final minute. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute to lose its raw taste.

Return the beef and bacon to the pot. Pour in the wine, scraping up every scrap of fond, then add enough stock to just cover the meat. Stir in the tomato purée and bouquet garni.

Bring to a bare simmer on the hob, cover with the lid ajar, and transfer to the oven. Cook 2.5–3 hours, checking after two hours.

Meanwhile, brown the baby onions whole in a little butter in a separate pan until glazed, then add a splash of water, cover, and cook gently until tender, about fifteen minutes. Sauté the mushrooms hard in the remaining butter until golden — do this in a pan too hot rather than too crowded, or they will stew grey instead of browning.

When the beef is done, stir the glazed onions and mushrooms through the braise. If the sauce is thin, lift the meat out, reduce the liquid on the hob until it coats a spoon, then return everything to the pot.

Rest ten minutes before serving, or better, cool and refrigerate overnight and reheat gently the next day — the flavour is noticeably rounder.

The night before, combine the beef, wine, carrots, onion, garlic, orange peel and bouquet garni in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least eight hours, or overnight.

The next day, drain the beef and vegetables, reserving the marinade liquid separately. Dry the beef pieces thoroughly.

Heat the oven to 150°C. In a heavy pot, render the bacon in the olive oil until golden, then lift out. Brown the beef in batches in the same fat until well coloured; set aside with the bacon.

Add the reserved vegetables to the pot and soften for eight minutes. Stir in the tomato purée, cook a minute, then return the beef and bacon.

Pour in the brandy and let it bubble for thirty seconds, then add the reserved marinade liquid, orange peel and bouquet garni. Bring to a simmer, cover with the lid ajar, and transfer to the oven for three hours.

Stir in the olives for the final twenty minutes of cooking, just long enough to warm through and season the sauce. Remove the orange peel and bouquet garni before serving.

Rest ten minutes, skim any surface fat with a spoon, and serve with plain boiled potatoes, rice, or wide pasta.

Put the veal in a pot, cover with cold water, and bring slowly to a bare simmer, skimming the grey foam carefully for the first ten minutes — thorough skimming here is what keeps a blanquette pale rather than cloudy.

Add the studded onion, carrots, leek and bouquet garni. Cover with the lid ajar and simmer very gently — barely a tremor, never a rolling boil, or the veal turns stringy — for about 1.5 hours, until tender.

Meanwhile, glaze the baby onions in half the butter with a splash of water, covered, over low heat until tender, about fifteen minutes, without letting them colour. Sauté the mushrooms briefly in a dry pan with a squeeze of lemon juice to keep them pale.

When the veal is tender, lift the meat out and set aside, tented. Strain the poaching liquid, discarding the vegetables and bouquet garni, and measure out 700 ml — top up with water or reduce if needed.

In a clean saucepan, melt the remaining butter and stir in the flour to make a pale roux; cook gently for two minutes without colouring. Off the heat, whisk in the hot poaching liquid gradually to avoid lumps, then return to the heat and simmer, whisking, until it thickens to a light coating sauce, about eight minutes — this is a velouté.

Return the veal, baby onions and mushrooms to the sauce and warm through gently over low heat.

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the cream. Ladle a little of the hot sauce into the bowl, whisking constantly, to warm the yolks without cooking them — this is tempering. Repeat with another ladleful, then stir the warmed mixture back into the pot off the heat.

Return the pot to the very lowest heat and stir constantly until the sauce visibly thickens and clings to the spoon, three to four minutes. It must never boil past this point, or the yolks will scramble.

Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice and season with salt and white pepper — black pepper would speckle the pale sauce. Serve with plain rice or boiled potatoes.

Heat the oven to 160°C. Dry the lamb well and brown it in the oil in a heavy pot, in batches, until well coloured on all sides.

Return all the lamb to the pot, sprinkle over the flour, and stir over the heat for a minute to cook it out. Stir in the tomato purée.

Pour in the stock, scraping the base of the pot, and add the garlic head and bouquet garni. Bring to a simmer, cover with the lid ajar, and braise in the oven for 1.5 hours, until the lamb is nearly tender.

While it braises, glaze the turnips and carrots separately: for each, melt a knob of butter in a pan with a pinch of sugar and enough water to come halfway up the vegetables, cover, and simmer until tender and the liquid has reduced to a glaze, about fifteen minutes each. Glaze the baby onions the same way.

When the lamb is nearly tender, lift it from the pot with a slotted spoon, strain the braising liquid to remove the garlic and bouquet garni, and skim any fat from the surface. Return the lamb and the liquid to the pot.

Add the glazed turnips, carrots and onions to the pot and simmer together, uncovered, for ten minutes to marry the flavours.

Add the peas in the final four minutes — just long enough to cook through and keep their colour. Stir through the parsley, check the seasoning, and serve straight from the pot.

Put the shin and chuck in a very large pot, cover generously with cold water, and bring slowly to a simmer. Skim the grey foam thoroughly for the first fifteen minutes — this single step decides whether the broth ends up clear or cloudy.

Meanwhile, char the halved onion, cut side down, directly in a dry hot pan until nearly black — this old trick colours and deepens the broth the way roasted bones would in a stock. Add it to the pot along with the whole studded onion.

Add the peppercorns and bouquet garni. Cover, leaving the lid well ajar, and simmer at the gentlest possible bubble for two hours, topping up with a little boiling water if the meat becomes exposed.

Add the carrots, turnips, celery and leek bundle, along with the marrow bones. Continue simmering gently for a further 1.5–2 hours, until the chuck is meltingly tender and the shin's connective tissue has softened.

Lift out the meat, bones and vegetables carefully, keeping them warm, and strain the broth through a sieve into a clean pot, discarding the spent onion and bouquet garni.

Serve in two courses from the same pot: first the hot broth alone, with coarse salt to season it at the table; then the sliced meat, vegetables, and marrow spread on toast, with mustard and cornichons alongside.