Literally
'pot on the fire' this is a timeless recipe which dates back
to prehistoric times when Lascaux Man, tired of painting all
those epic murals, slunk back to the fireside and chucked whatever
came to hand into the pot on the fire. 
Meat
and vegetables, or just a few bones and a handful of herbs or
grasses. The French have formalized things a bit since those
days but even Toulouse Woman, who is probably today's equivalent,
will still not shrink from throwing into the pot whatever seizes
her fancy.
Ingredients
( 6 people):
Vegetables: 6
carrots, 4 leeks, 6 little navets (turnips), a parsnip, half
a head of celery, half a celeriac, an onion. 6 potatoes cooked
separately in their jackets.
Meat:
about a kilo of beef chuck or brisket, tied with string. 4
or so marrow bones.
Peppercorns
(12) bayleaves (3) garlic cloves (6) sprig of thyme
Method
There
are many people who try and cook all these ingredients more or
less separately: this is pointless as the whole idea is to flavour
the bouillon as much as possible.
Throw the meat (the chuck or brisket) into a two litres of water
in a large heavy cast-iron pot. Bring to the boil and skim the
scum that forms two or three times. Let it cook for about two
hours. Then add all the other ingredients making sure to tie
the veg into handy bundles so that you can fish them out at the
end without everything disintegrating. Cook very slowly for at
least another two hours.
Then carefully take out the veg and meat with a flat holy spoon
(from Lourdes, de préférence) and place
them on a warmed serving dish (which you could keep in a coolish
oven). Strain the remaining liquid into a soupière (what!
you don't have one!) and serve immediately. There are some finicky
people who insist on de-greasing this bouillon before serving it
... but if you've spent a long day at the cave-painting you're
not going to bother with this.
The
vegetables, potatoes (which you can either cook separately or
risk disintegration by adding them 30 minutes before eating)
meat and marrow bones are then presented as the second course,
traditionally
accompanied
with
a couple
of
different
kinds of mustard, sea salt (or fleur de sel if you can
find it), cornichons, aïoli, mild chutney and so on.
Serve
with a Côtes de Rhône, a Buzet or even a Cahors.