Recipe #03 – Brouet Rousset

For the third dish I wanted to make a nice  hearty meat dish so I chose the Brouet Rousset. It is a thick dark sauce with onions and spices that can be used for any meat. I chose to use pork.

Here is the original french recipe:

21. Brouet rousset sur tel grain que vouldrez
Pour faire brouet rousset sur tel grain que vouldrez: prenez ognons tailliez par roelles et persin effueillie – sy le suffrisiez en beau sain de lard; prenez pain harlez deffait de bon boullon et passe parmy l’estamine, gingembre, canelle, clou, graine, vin et vergus; faictez boullir tout ensamble, et vostre grain comme desus; et soit vostre brouet roux.”

This is Scully’s translation:

To make a Russet Broth for over any meat you wish. Get sliced rounds of onions and parsley leaves, and saute this in good rendered lard; get toast distempered in good bouillon and strained, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise and verjuice; boil everything together along with your meat, as above. It should be a real Russet Broth.

Here is what I did…

The ingredients I used for the sauce were chicken broth, toasted french bread, a large onion, parsley, lard, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and grains of paradise (not in picture.)

The recipe says to cut the onions in rounds but I decided to do half rounds because the onion I had was very large. I would normally have used flat leave parsley but the store  was out so I had to use curly parsley instead.

The bread was toasted in a regular toaster but I think next time I will use the oven or my stove top camp toaster so I can control the darkness of the bread more easily. I ended up with a few pieces burnt before I got the dark but not burned color that I wanted.

 

 

 

First thing I did was break up the toast into a bowl and added the chicken broth and let is soak. While the toast soaked I melted the lard in a pan and added the onions and parsley. The onions and parsley cooked over a medium heat being stirred occasionally to keep them from burning while they browned and cooked through. Once the onions were cooking I turned back to the toast. I had soaked up almost all of the broth and was ready to strain. Since I don’t mind getting my hands dirty I pressed the toast through the strainer by hand but you can use the back of a spoon as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next I needed to get the meat ready. In the recipe it says to treat the meat “as above” which I took to mean that the meat should be cooked the same way and in the recipe before this one. In the previous recipe the meat was cut into chunks and sauteed in lard. As I stated before I chose to use pork for the dish. I did this for two reasons: 1. I like pork and 2. It was on sale.

Once I had the pork in the pan I started putting the sauce together in another pan so that it would be hot and ready to add to the cooked pork.  The strainer toast and broth were poured into the pot with the onions and parsley. Then the verjuice and spices added and brought up to  a boil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once to pork was browned but not quite cooked through and the sauce was heated just to a boil I poured the sauce into the pan with the meat and set at about a medium heat to bring it all to a good boil. Then I lowered the heat and let the meat and sauce simmer for about 15 mins to finish cooking the pork and to thicken the sauce. The sauce became nice and thick almost like a modern stew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Verdict…

I wouldn’t change a thing! This was a wonderfully hearty pork stew. The verjuice and spices gave it just enough of a bit to keep it from being bland and the toast as a thickener worked perfectly. When I added the sauce to the pan with the meat I did not drain the meat so the rendered fat from the pork and the lard it was sauteed in added to the texture and the flavor. I will absolutely be making this dish again. Next time I would like to try it with beef as I think that it would work very well.