Many of you would not put Easter, Springtime and slowly, braised lamb stew, in the same sentence. This would be a wintertime all-in-one meal at my house. Perhaps, first snowstorm, crockpot and slowly, braised lamb stew fits better.
Not this week.
Navarin (lamb stew) Printanier (spring vegetables)
According to Ms. Greenspan, our leader and author of Around My French Table, this week’s recipe is a classic and a staple of the Easter season in France. The lamb is meant to be paired with freshly dug spring vegetables, tiny onions, carrots, turnips, potatoes and peas. I was able to buy all the vegetables but the peas at our local Farmer’s Market. (I used frozen peas.)
Farmer’s Market Spring Vegetables
I cut a three-pound boneless lamb shoulder into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Be sure to remove the excess fatty pieces. The cooking method is a classic braise, perfect for my 7 1/4 quart Creuset cast-iron dutch oven. Brown the meat. Add broth and other seasonings. Simmer.
Mise En Place – The Fixins’
Next, prepare the veggies and brown in butter for ten minutes. After the meat has simmered for 45 minutes, add the vegetables. A caution, the peas stand alone, unable to play with others until the last moment.
Browning the lamb pieces
Brown the vegetables in butter. No peas, please.
While the stew simmered and still having 1 pound of fresh carrots left, I decided to make Dorie’s café-style grated carrot salad (p. 107). Carottes râpées is also a French classic and served everywhere, from the toniest restaurant to the cheapest student café. Buy it at any take-out place or local grocery store. It’s arguably the favored raw salad of France.
Dorie’s Café-style grated carrot salad
For dessert, I baked Brown Sugar Bundt Cake, a recipe from her Baking: From My Home to Yours. This is a versatile cake, not choosy when it is served, and is perfect for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or bedtime snack. The leftover cake made its way through the neighborhood to very good reviews. Find this recipe here and here.
Brown Sugar Bundt Cake
It’s Springtime. The farmer’s fresh vegetables made this all-in-one-meal quite special and tasty. A winter dish? Wasn’t mentioned. I heard no complaints.
Navarin Printanier
To see how others fared this week, please go to http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/
I must say yours look delicious ! I love it …full of flavors and the best stew I have eaten. Your carrots salad must have tasted good too and great salad to go with your lamb stew !
Have a great weekend!
Look at that YUMMY bundt cake!! Gorgeous! Straight to dessert!
Mary had a little lamb, huh? Groan.
I love your bundt pan 🙂
Yeah, I had to work hard to come up with that one!!!!!!! Thank you for appreciating it.
Mary, Your meal looks amazing! I can’t wait to try the carrot salad…I make a version every summer…looking forward to trying Dories! Such a tasty looking stew!
Mary, I do not even know where to start…love the photos of your vegetables and the lamb stew, looks delicious and I agree that this job called out for a Creuset cast- iron Dutch oven – the carrot salad so nicely presented, love that French tablecloth and then the Bundt – looks like you used a very pretty Bundt pan. I think after all the lamb stew, I could use a piece of that Brown Sugar Bundt Cake…
Have a wonderful weekend!
I totally agree tha this should be a winter meal and made in a slow cooker. I was in Paris many years ago during this time and it was freezing!!! I guess it makes sense. Either way, delicious.
wish I had joined you for dinner! a thoughtfully sourced and I’m sure delicious meal. I will have to try the brown sugar bundt cake recipe. Mary had a little lamb indeed!
“The peas stand alone” haha! I’m jealous of your beautiful carrots – the ones I found at the grocery store were really skinny and weird looking. Your dinner sounds delicious!
Great cook along photos. That carrot salad looks tasty!! Yummy!
Wow! Carrot salad and a bundt cake in addition to the stew…I’m impressed! Pretty place setting!
I’ve been wanting to try that carrot salad. Maybe this weekend as the carrots I got for the stew were supersweet. I’m jealous that you can get all the vegetables fresh at your farmers market now. Ours doesn’t even open for another month. Cooking with people with different geographies is another thing that makes this group interesting.
Everything looks wonderful, Mary. I haven’t had carrot salad in a very long time and will have to try Dorie’s – it looks delicious. I am glad I found lamb stew meat because I could not find lamb shoulder. This was such an enjoyable meal.
Totally impressed by the whole meal. Salad and cake! I am lucky to get one recipe on the table at a time!
The food all looks fantastic – and kudos for making THREE recipes! – but what I want to know is, where did you get that beautiful cake dome? I love the tapered sides.
Trae, Believe it or not, I purchased it at Michael’s (the craft store) when I was buying Valentine’s decorations. It is by Wilton. Although I think Nordic ware manufactures the best bundt pans, this pan is heavy and the cake came out perfectly, as you could see. Recommend Wiltons.
Mary, hope you can bear another comment from me: I wholeheartedly support your choice of “Favorite Cupcake”!
So, Andrea, your read Dorie’s Facebook commentary also? She’s fun and I love her style. So, I had to nominate her!!! I’m dying to win that app!
Wow! You did an amazing job on all the recipes, they all look fantastic!
I’ve eyed that cake recipe on several occasions and yours looks great. Might have to give it a try. And that carrot salad is one of my long standing favorites. I pulled it off Dorie’s website years ago, long before I had her book, it’s just such a light easy side which goes with just about everything.
Looks delicious! I am with you, this is more of a winter/fall dish for us. The bundt cake looks yummy, I will have to check that recipe out!
The peas stand alone. Poor peas. lol. That made me laugh. Good job!
Your farmer’s market vegetables make your version very printanier! And I’m so impressed that you didn’t just stop with the stew, but added 2 other courses.
Your stew looks so elegant on those lovely blue and white bowls. I adored it and would make it again.
what a delightfully complete meal!! I need to borrow your bundt pan sometime! 🙂
Your dishes are quite beautiful! We loved this stew, too!
I don’t know how I missed your post. Your dish looks great!
Looks like a lovely meal! I will have to try that bundt cake recipe (I recently got that cookbook) – I love a nice, basic cake.