Lamb Navarin

I picked this recipe because "Navarin" sounded Indian and I pictured the outcome looking something like a curry but in actuality, Lamb Navarin is a French ragout (stew) of lamb and turnips (turnip = navet in French). I couldn't have been more off target --and I didn't even include turnips sooooo.....I guess this is just Andi's Lamb Stew. Forget the whole navarin business.

The portions I yielded from this are gigante. 5 days of lunch and dinner for 1 person. And a good thing that it tastes wonderful, otherwise it would have been ladled out at the soup kitchen long ago.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. boneless lamb leg, cubed (trim off excess fat)
head of cauliflower, cut in florets
1 bunch of small carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 bunch of kale, torn in bite size pieces
5 red potatoes, quartered
15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 tsp. tomato paste
4 shallots, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 cup red wine
cayenne pepper (5 dashes)
cumin (1 1/2 tsp.)
salt & pepper
3 tbsp. of all purpose flour


Prep all of the vegetables first. This always takes me the longest amount of time--wash, dry, clean your workstation, cut, toss, peel, etc. Took about 45 minutes. Then cut up the lamb. In a large pan on medium-high heat brown the lamb and set aside in a big mixing bowl. Don't cook through, just get the outsides browned because the lamb with finish cooking while stewing. You'll probably have to work the lamb in batches because 2 lbs. yields a lot of lamb. In the mixing bowl, toss and coat the lamb with flour. I'm not sure what this does but the recipe I followed instructed me to do so. Maybe it seals in some of the flavor? or helps thicken the stew?


Put all of the lamb back into a big pot on medium-high heat. Add the garlic, shallots, wine, tomato paste, tomatoes with their juices, and spices. Bring to a boil then simmer on a lower heat for 45 min-1 hr. Then add the vegetables and simmer on low for an hour and 1/2, stirring occassionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Surprisingly, my favorite part of this stew is the kale. I've never had kale but it retained most of its strength while softening a bit, giving light crunch, and soaked up a lot of the flavor and juice from the stew. Kale is about 4x tougher than lettuce and 4x darker. It's a great contrast to root vegetables like potato and carrots.