Sausage "Pot Roast" with... Bacons

[Cette recette est également disponible en français]

Two Saturdays ago, after a busy day spent at the college listening to student papers, the Bacon Gang needed some comfort food. Here's a classic from French traditional cuisine. We like to refer to it as potée, which can loosely translate as «something cooked in a pot», hence my title of "pot roast", although there's no actual roasting involved. If anyone has a better name for the dish in English, I'm open to suggestions.

This is a bit of a project to prepare, but it's worth every pot that will require washing afterwards:

• 6 sausages (1-2 per person) (Toulouse sausage is my favourite, but it can be done with any sausage; I had to import mine all the way from Montréal on my last trip; they were frozen, which explain some of the slashes in them)
• 2-3 leeks (cut the whites in quarters and the greens in thin slices)
• 1-2 carrots, sliced
  
• 2-3 celery branches, diced
• 1 medium onion (better: one or two shallots) finely chopped
  
• 3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
  
• 200 gr bacon (thick if possible) and/or pancetta (Italian bacon)
  
• white wine (roughly a bottle)
  
• unsalted (or home-made) chicken broth
  
• fresh parsley, finely chopped
  
• herbes de Provence, salt and pepper
  

First, simmer the sausages in a mix of white wine and cold water until they are fully cooked (about twenty minutes from the point of boiling). Meanwhile, prepare vegetables and poach the bacon(s). This means to start them in cold water, bring it to a gentle boil and then turn off the heat. Drain on a plate with paper towels.

Slice the bacon in thin strips. Fry in a little bit of oil with the onion/shallot over medium heat until the onion becomes transparent (don't brown it). Add wine and bring to a gentle simmer. Lay a bed of leeks, and then put the cooked sausages on top.

On the sausages, add the rest of the vegetables and cover with broth. DO NOT STIR.

Cover and let the mixture simmer over medium-low heat for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Add parsley before serving and enjoy with fresh baguette. Use tongs to grasp sausages and veggies for serving. In the plate shown above, there were also red potatoes that had been boiled, had finely chopped onion added, and then doused with olive oil. There was also Brussels sprouts and bacon... the recipe for which will follow in a few days. Yes, Brussels sprouts can be yummy! And so can sausages.