Judd mat Gaardebounen, smoked pork and broad beans Luxembourg-style

If one dish sums up Luxembourg at the table, it’s this one. There’s nothing sophisticated about it, and that’s the appeal for me. It’s proper home cooking, the kind made on a Sunday with time to spare, and it tells you more about the country than a ten-course menu. Below I explain the dish, the cooking and how to order it without ending up with something else.

What exactly is it?

The national portal defines it in a single line, smoked pork collar with broad beans, often served with potatoes. The name is pure Luxembourgish, with Judd being the smoked pork collar and Gaardebounen the broad beans. On menus written in French, which is the norm in restaurants, you may find it as collet de porc fumé aux fèves des marais, the same official definition. British readers might think of it as a smoked gammon supper with broad beans, which is my comparison rather than an official one.

What doesn’t exist is a law declaring it the national dish. Luxembourg’s youth hostels, on their food blog, say that Luxembourgers regard it that way, and it’s the dish that comes up most whenever the country’s cooking is discussed, starting with the list of typical dishes on the government’s own portal.

How it’s cooked

I’d use the recipe published by the youth hostels as a starting point, though it’s a secondary source and every household has its own. First the meat is soaked in a large pan of cold water, brought to the boil and cooked for 10 minutes. Then the water is changed, chopped vegetables, an onion studded with cloves and a bouquet garni go in, and it all simmers gently for about two hours.

Meanwhile you prepare the broad beans, around 500 grams for four. Fresh or frozen ones are boiled in salted water, tinned ones simply drained. The sauce starts as a roux of butter and flour, loosened gradually with the meat’s cooking stock until it thickens, and the beans go in for a few minutes. The meat is sliced and laid on top, with mashed or sautéed potatoes. All in, about two hours and twenty minutes.

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What makes it so Luxembourgish?

For me it’s the very definition of what the official portal calls cooking tied to the land, simple and made with what the fields and the family pig provided. Smoked pork that would keep, beans from the garden and potatoes to fill you up. It also appears in the recipe book of Ketty Thull, the writer who shaped Luxembourg’s home cooking for decades, whose 2011 edition lists it among the seasonal classics alongside Bouneschlupp and Kniddelen. The same selection includes Kuddelfleck, Wäinzoossiss and Kiermescrème, which gives you a fair idea of the company Judd keeps on a Luxembourg table. There’s more on that style of cooking in Luxembourg food.

Where to order it and what to drink

I’d look for it in a traditional bistro, where Luxembourgish cooking lives on the menu, and I’d have it at lunchtime, when a dish like this can be enjoyed without hurry. If the menu is only in French, look for the word collet. Which kind of place to pick in each area is in where to eat in Luxembourg.

To drink, what the recipe suggests and what I’d do anyway, a Moselle white, preferably Riesling, which cleans the palate after the smokiness. Riesling covers 153 hectares of Luxembourg’s vineyards and has its own three-day festival in Wormeldange on the third weekend of September. More on those grapes in Luxembourg wine.

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Can you make it at home in Britain?

Without any trouble, and it’s the best way to bring the country home with you. Broad beans are an allotment favourite in summer and easy to find frozen all year, and a good butcher can supply smoked pork collar or a similar smoked joint. Two tips. Soak the meat well, or the sauce will be too salty, and don’t cut the simmering short, because the whole point is meat that falls apart as you slice it. With mash and a crisp white you’ll have a genuine Luxembourg supper. And if you enjoy it, the natural next step is Bouneschlupp, the green bean soup with smoked bacon that shares its mix of garden and smokehouse.

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