Thursday, April 26, 2012

French Fridays with Dorie - Navarin Printanier




Today´s choice for the French Fridays with Dorie group is Navarin Printanier or Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables. The title of this recipe already sounds delicious. It seems like the perfect dish to prepare on a windy and rainy Spring day like today.





It turned out that the most difficult part of this recipe was getting fresh, good quality boneless lamb shoulder. I was glad that I had gone over the ingredient list a few days ago. There are no local traditional lamb dishes around here and not many peolpe eat lamb on a regular basis. So I had to order the meat a few days in advance, decided to double the recipe and ended up getting 6 pounds (about three kilos) of lamb shoulder.

My butcher  (the same one who usually orders the lamb chops for me) gave me a strange look but I figured that since the kids already love different kinds of stew that I often prepare, such as "Gulasch with Spätzle" and  "Gaisburger Marsch"  - prepared with potatoes and Spätzle - and since they enjoy lamb chops, they would eat this French lamb stew as well.






The Navarin is a traditional  French stew and there are hundreds of variations of this recipe.



















Dorie Greenspan' s recipe calls for a number of vegetables. You will need garlic, small white onions (one more challenging ingredient, I finally found them at a small greengrocer), carrots, turnips, small potatoes (bought the "new potatoes") and peas ( no chance of getting fresh peas at this time of year, so frozen peas will have to do - according to Dorie "almost everyone" uses them).






In addition to the vegetables, you will need a few fresh herbs. Dorie lists parsley, thyme and a bay leaf. Love these herbs...






After I brought all the required ingredients home, I started out by cutting the lamb shoulder into cubes and trimming off the excess fat. The rest of this one-pot meal was easy to prepare since the instructions in Dorie´s recipe are quite straightforward.

Nothing seems to spell comfort better than a pot of stew simmering on the stove. When my husband and the kids came home, it certainly was nice to hear them say that although they did not know what I was preparing, it "smelled great".





As suggested by Dorie, I served the stew in individual shallow soup dishes and I sprinkled a bit of chopped parsley on top. We had a big loaf of crusty French bread and lightly salted French butter on the side. The meat was tender, the vegetables rounded out the meal beautifully and everyone around the table ate and liked the Navarin Printanier!

Voilà! Great success!

I am glad that my family likes eating lamb because I do too and it is nice to know that they all will venture past marinated lamb chops mediterranean style!




(When we were in Rouen, Normandy, we found this wonderful indoor market with vendors selling vegetables, fruits, cheeses, cured meats, eggs, and much more - wish I was there right now...)


To see how the other Doristas prepared the Navarin Printanier this week,  please click here.




32 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I'm not a lamb fan, but this does look quite tasty, and I love your fresh herbs:)

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    1. Thank you - and I really liked the herbs in this French stew. The combination was just right and did not overpower the dish.

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  2. Your stew looks gorgeous, and I love that shot of your herbs...so pretty!

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    1. We enjoyed that stew quite a bit and I do like to use herbs as much as I can.

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  3. Beautiful pictures - the herb combination sounds great.

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    1. Thank you - I love using herbs, plant way too many and use them as often as possible.

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  4. Your photos are lovely! Such a gorgeous looking stew…it’s hard to make stew look pretty, but you did it!

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  5. Ça à l'air délicieux, et les photos sont superbes !

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    1. Merci Nicolas pour ton très gentil compliment - j' apprécie beaucoup! Je te souhaite un bon fin de semaine!

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  6. Lovely pictures, you really are talented behind the camera. Finding lamb in Frankfurt is no problem, possibly because of the large expat population. But I did have a problem finding the baby onions and ended up just using small-ish white onions. Oh well, it's always going to be something so best to just carry on.

    By the way, thanks for letting me know about that kitchen store last week. I was very sad to see that they do not have a shop in Amsterdam, because I have to travel there quite frequently for work. But the place looks quite interesting, so maybe I'll come across it some day soon in my travels.

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    1. Glad you found the link to the Dille & Kamille stores - maybe they will open a "dependance" in Amsterdam soon...who knows, things change so quickly. And please make sure that the next time your travelling schedule calls for the Bonn/Cologne region and leaves you a bit of time on your hand, let me know, those two cities have fantastic coffeeshops etc.

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  7. Andrea, I just LOVE reading your Post. I think you are the only one who dared put a picture of those cute little lambs in your Post. You don't suppose those are the ones you ate, do you? I had leftovers which I divided into two packets and froze for another dinner or two also. I love the manner in which you sprinkle a few of your European words into your beautifully written English posts. Love the pictures. I could almost smell what your family was raving about.

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    1. Well, the picture of those lambs...I had a bit of a discussion there with my husband about posting that photo...and thank you so much for your very very nice comment - means a lot to me.

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  8. What a beautiful post! I'm running a couple of days behind, so appreciate the lovely inspiration. I'll be making this on Sunday. Your photos are gorgeous!

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  9. Thank you for sharing your beautiful post. I wish I cold go to that market too!!!

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    1. I am constantly on the lookout for similar markets around here, but alas, no such luck.

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  10. Your photos are inspiring, Andrea. What a beautiful post. I'm glad you and your family also enjoyed this version of lamb stew.

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    1. Well, thank you so much - it is not always easy to find a recipe that they all like and will actually eat.

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  11. Your stew looks delicious! Glad that your family liked it, lamb is a great meat! I would also like to be at that indoor market, looks great!

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  12. Andrea, you did a great job! I can imagine it tasted great; it comes through in the pictures! Though the little lamb was hard so look at after the huge plate I had last night...

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    1. Well, I took the pictures of the lambs at an agricultural spring fair - just thought that they had a very nice brown color and looked wonderful! Next time I will ask one of the artists in my life to make a nice drawing instead...

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  13. Lovely photos.and your stew looks delish ;) well done

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  14. The picture of the fresh herbs is so lovely! I'm definitely going to try to get some rosemary and bay leaves to work in my herb garden this year. Glad you all enjoyed this stew - looks very tasty!

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    1. Thank you for your kind comment - you can never plant enough herbs...Do you have a blog - I cannot seem to find it...

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  15. well your photography is amazing and your stew looks great as well! We LOVED this one! :) This will be hitting our table again and again! It's not a shock how often I turn to past FFWD for dinner parties or just when we are craving something we have done for a past FFWD :)

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    1. That is so nice that you and your family enjoy the FFwD recipes so much - it is always great to prepare a lovely meal for family and friends.

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  16. I'm glad you were able to get lamb from your butcher for this delicious stew. Your pictures are just beautiful, Andrea. I especially like the ones of the lambs and the herbs. Have a great week!

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    1. When it comes to herbs I simply cannot seem to get enough of them and the lambs were just so beautiful to look at.

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