On the heat. Mild

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg lamb stewing cubes
• 2 tbsp oil · 30 g butter
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp flour · 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1.2 l lamb or chicken stock
• 4 cloves garlic · bouquet garni
• — THE SPRING VEGETABLES
• 12 baby carrots · 12 baby turnips
• 12 small new potatoes · 200 g baby onions
• 150 g peas · 150 g green beans
• Parsley, chervil

Method

1. Brown the lamb hard in the oil and butter, in batches.
2. All the meat back in, sprinkle over the sugar and let it caramelise for two minutes — this is the classic navarin step and it is what gives the sauce its colour.
3. Flour in, cooked 2 minutes. Tomato paste, 1 minute. Stock in gradually, stirring.
4. Garlic and bouquet garni in. Lid on, 160 °C oven, 1 hour 15.
5. Glaze the carrots, turnips and onions separately in butter and a little sugar, and boil the potatoes. Blanch the peas and beans and refresh them in iced water.
6. Add the root vegetables and potatoes to the pot for the last 20 minutes, and the peas and beans for the last 3 minutes only. Herbs over. Every vegetable should still taste of itself.

Cook's note. Cooking the vegetables separately is not fussiness. A navarin printanier where everything has stewed together for an hour is a brown stew, and the whole name means "spring".

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