Navarin Printanier: Lamb and Vegetable Stew

I´m excited about this recipe because the cold weather has started to arrive to this latitude, so a lamb and vegetable stew is a very good idea.

Today´s recipe from Around My French Table, for our FFWD group, is Navarin Printanier. A very hard to retain couple of words for a tasty braised lamb stew. Full of veggies and melt-in-your-mouth pieces of lamb.

I got back last night from a fairly long trip, a twenty hour flight from the United States. I had left a lot of posts ready but hadn´t had time to do this dish. I figured I had a few days, you know, since I just got back from a long trip, but then I read this post and my guilty twin surfaced. So I dashed across the street to the supermarket and even found a piece of lamb. The rest was a bit of a trade-off. Red onions instead of small white ones, no turnips and green beans instead of peas.
The meat is cut up in pieces and seared in olive oil. A bit of flour is added to the pot, roux-style, and then broth is added and cooked for a long while, together with tomato paste (a great ingredient for so many things), thyme, bay leaf, garlic and parsley, the flour nicely thickening the liquid.

The different part, and which I like a lot, is done with the vegetables. They (onions, carrots and turnips), are seared in a skillet with butter and then caramelized a bit with the aid of a couple tablespoons of sugar. I could have eaten them right there.  

Vegetables caramelizing

They are then mixed with the lamb and some potatoes. I also deglazed the skillet where the veggies had been with some broth and added it to the pot, since the idea of leaving that caramelized flavor there killed me; it´s the best part.

Then everything goes into the oven. Now, I would normally just leave it to simmer away right there in the stove, but the recipe said oven; so oven it was.



Before going into the oven



Right out of the oven

My dinner, after two days of airport and bad food, was incredible. A good chunk of fresh french bread was missing though. And I suspect that, like any good stew, it´s even better the next day, slowly reheated.

This is a great recipe, much like a well-made beef bourguignon. There´s not really much work involved, especially if you have a nice, defatted, already cut piece of lamb.

It´s another very forgiving one… beef for lamb, any vegetables, any herbs you like…you get the picture.