Baeckeoffe, an Alsatian layered meat and potato pot

Peel and wash the onions and cut them into little slices.

Cut the potatoes by hand into thick slices, not super thin, and hold them in water.

Marinate the three cut meats the day before with onion, bay leaf, thyme, juniper berries, black pepper, salt, garlic and the white wine. Nothing else is cooked for this dish.

Layer an earthenware pot with a glazed bottom, or a cast iron pot: potatoes first.

Follow with a layer of meat lifted out of the marinade, taking some of the onion, garlic and thyme with it, and a piece of pork belly.

Add a layer of onion, press the whole lot down, and keep stacking potato, meat and onion until the pot is full.

Season the top with pepper and salt.

Pour the whole marinade over unfiltered, then top up with a little water until it comes just to the edge.

Make a dough of bread flour and a bit of water, roll it into a long rope and press it all around the rim as a joint, then set the lid into it to seal the pot tight. Plug the steam hole with a piece of dough as well.

Put the sealed pot into a cold oven at 150C and slow cook for three hours.

Chip and break the baked seal off to open the pot; it sets hard as rock.

Serve from the pot: the dish is meant to hold a clear broth rather than a thick sauce, the potatoes hold their shape but are fragile, and the meat falls apart.