Navarin d’Agneau Printanier

Part 2: Neither stupid nor unintelligible and not a hint of snobbery

I'm also going to talk about a dish that may be a little neglected, but is nonetheless enjoyable: mutton stew with new vegetables, also known as "Navarin printanier”. - Maurice Mabilat writing Paris Gourmand for the La Toque Blanche, a weekly newspaper for professional chefs, 1926

“Navarin is a stupid word which has arisen from a desire to get rid of the unintelligible and misleading name Haricot de mouton, without falling back on the vulgar phrase, Ragoût de mouton….” And so Eneas Sweetland Dallas begins his entry of Navarin in the culinary dictionary Kettner's The Book of the Table (a manual of cookery practical, theoretical, historical), published in London in 1877.

The late 19th century finds us moving away from the “unintelligible and misleading" haricot de mouton and finding the “stupidly named” navarin in more and more cookbooks, albeit tentatively. But Dallas might not have been very far wrong, because some of the earliest recipes for navarin might lead to a lot of confusion; Dallas soundly states that a navarin is “a ragout of mutton in the garniture of which the navet or turnip is supreme,” the navarin being an attempt at “punning on the word navet or turnip” which is prevalent in the stew. This seems to have been the accepted definition by the time he wrote Kettner’s in 1877. And yet the word navarin as the name of a dish first appeared in Carême’s 1833 L’Art de la Cuisine Française au dix-neuvième siècle (French cuisine in the 19th century) 50-some years before Kettner’s and a very short 6 years after the Battle of Navarin was fought and won (remember that many people still believe the dish was named after the war victory at Navarin), and his recipes notably and haughtily titled navarin are nothing resembling an haricot or a ragoût de mouton. His cabillaud à la navarin is a grosse pièce, a large, impressively garnished dish most likely meant to be a centerpiece on an elegant table in which cod or lobster, as he also suggests for this dish, is cooked in a strong mire-poix (a mixture of diced vegetables) with Chablis, set out onto a platter and garnished with crayfish and smelts, skewers of truffles and carp roe; this navarin is then served with a hollandaise sauce and mushroom ragout and crayfish and mussels. His rouget à la navarin lines up 5 large red mullets that have been marinated in salt, pepper, and lemon juice; the entire surface is then masked with whiting quenelle stuffing with crayfish butter to a “thickness of a fist”; the fish thus dressed are then placed on a bed of mire-poix prepared with Champagne that has been pressed through a sieve. It is then steam cooked. He also has a lobster stew à la Navarin which involves making the ragoût with lobster meat cooked in Champagne, eel quenelles, mushrooms, and oysters. Curiously, Carême also includes a recipe for a potage de purée de pois nouveaux à la navarin, a puréed new pea soup to which is added small pheasant quenelles, sautéed eel filets, crayfish tails, half a liter of freshly steamed peas (steamed to keep them a “beautiful green” color), and chopped and blanched parsley before serving. 

Carême’s large fish dishes, including a navarin, meant to stand as the centerpiece of an elegant table.

Misleading, indeed. But the illustrious Carême can be thanked for introducing the word navarin into the culinary, nay, the gastronomical lexicon. Carême was known for naming his dishes quite pompously (à la Lucullus, à la Rothschild, à la Paganini, à la Pompadour, or à la Montmorenci-Liancourt), and rightly so as his dishes were often extravagant concoctions prepared for sumptuous dinners much like his navarins above.

There was only one other very intriguing find, and that in Pierre Lacam’s Le mémorial historique et géographique de la pâtisserie written in 1900. He has a recipe for navarins in his chapter petits gâteaux, dits à la main, which are, I assume, small cakes eaten with the hands. One lines 15 or 20 small brioches molds with pastry crust which are filled with a batter made of eggs, sugar, and lemon, butter, flour, raisins and chopped candied peel, the batter then lightened with whipped egg whites. The filling is covered with a lattice-work crust and baked. I have yet to find another book including a navarin pastry or referencing anything of the kind.  

This illustrates that, in fact, the first mentions of navarin in French cookbooks have absolutely nothing to do with mutton stew. Or turnips, for that matter. We can make the assumption (or I do, anyway) that coming hot off the victory of the Battle of Navarin, it did initially come from that. How or why it made the jump to navet and haricot is impossible to know. 

But soon we begin seeing recipes in cookbooks that blend the names haricot and navarin, signaling the changeover to the new word for the dish, or making it clear that they are one and the same. After Baron Brisse writes “(navarin) is the new name given to the classic haricot de mouton” in 1868, La Cuisinière des Petits Ménages (contenant les véritables principes d’une cuisine économique, succulente & varié) The Small Household Cook (containing the true principles of economical, succulent & varied cooking) covers it all about 25 years later with a single recipe called “Haricot de mouton (or hochepot) and Navarin”, getting in every possible term for this recipe, a nice mutton stew with both beans and turnips, adding “The is the real haricot de mouton, but we also make it with green beans which have been cooked ahead of time and added to the stew 15 minutes before the end of cooking. And the Navarin can also be made with potatoes instead of the beans.” Even the 1904 L’Art du Bien Manger (Richardin with Brillat-Savarin and Robida) has a single recipe for Ragoût de mouton (Navarin ou haricot, suivant les uns) - allowing one to choose the name of the dish “as one pleases”.

Cookbooks are also beginning to use navarin as a stand-alone name and sometimes offering separate recipes for both a navarin and an haricot, no matter how similar. La Bonne Cuisine Pour Tous; ou L’Art de Bien Vivre à Bon Marché by Marcel Butler of 1885 offers recipes for both a Poitrine de mouton navarin and a Boeuf en navarin as well as an Haricot de mouton ou navarin in 1885, somewhat confusing until one realizes the similarities in the 3 dishes point to a common meaning of the word. The first is simply “leftover mutton breast meat, cut into pieces then reheated in potato and turnip stew seasoned with salt and pepper.” A really basic dish for using up leftovers. The beef navarin is really a classic mutton stew replacing the mutton with beef while the haricot calls specifically for mutton or lamb chop scraps; the haricot includes only potatoes while the beef navarin only turnips, the poitrine de mouton navarin contains both. Three dishes all playing on one common recipe.

Gustave Garlin has a recipe for Le Navarin and another for the Haricot de mouton in his 1889 Le Pâtissier Moderne. He himself finally explains, clarifying the difference between the two dishes in the now modern sense of what they’ve become: “The Navarin is richer than the haricot because the accompanying vegetables are more select. It’s not uncommon to add a glass of good Madeira or white wine to the Navarin and to “turn” or elegantly shape the vegetables. In some regions, morels are added to the Navarin.” His navarin is decidedly richer and more elegant than his haricot: the mutton is “browned in butter with carrots, onion, bouquet garni; once browned (one adds) sauce espagnole, white wine, then it simmers to cook…The usual accompaniments to the Navarin are” - and apparently one has an abundance of choice - “potatoes, carrots and onions (the navarin then becomes “à la bourgeoise”), “les petits navets de Freneuse” - small, sweeter, carrot-shaped turnips - “beans of any sort, peas, broad beans, even chestnuts, kohlrabi, blanched artichoke hearts, etc.” His haricot, on the other hand, is just meat cooked with onions, carrots, and a bouquet garni in water or cider until the meat is cooked and the liquid reduced, flour and broth are then added. The addition of an unspecified “garnish” is added before serving. 

Oddly, Garlin mentions the cabillaud à la Navarin in his chapter on cod, but offers no recipe, more than 50 years after Carême introduces it. 

It’s about this time, as the navarin comes into its own in cookbooks, that another Battle of Navarin begins: what is it exactly and where does it fit into the gastronomic repertoire? Alexandre Dumas’ “plebeian stew” turned navarin is causing a stir in culinary circles. In the September 28, 1897 issue of the Figaro Journal Non-Politique, the editorial team inserts a tiny paragraph into its pages “A culinary question posed to us by one of our readers, and one that we have no right to judge without the help of scholars: Is navarin aux pommes (navarin with potatoes) made with veal, or can it be made with mutton? We are awaiting the outcome of this judgment, which is of interest to fine gourmets.”

The answers were both enlightening and entertaining. One M. Stignani, Maître d’hôtel of the Grand Hôtel Terminus weighs in: “In the culinary arts, one means, in my opinion, a stew made exclusively with mutton meat and potatoes.” Another response is published from “a man of infinite wit, an academician erudite in everything, even cooking, sends us, traced with his fine fly feet, the following consultation that sums it all up” (the paper’s editorial team did not lack snark that day) “Navarin is a bogus mutton stew invented by restaurateurs for customers who can't tell it from the real thing! Real mutton stew, which only allows potatoes to be browned on the side, is an admirable dish that few cooks know how to make properly. Navarin is a most mediocre dish, with its carrots, peas and so on. Let's make it with veal! It deserves no better!” 

And finally, M. Paillard of the illustrious Maison Paillard restaurant in Paris gives the final word on the navarin question: “Navarin takes its name from the turnip known as naval, navier and naviair in various French provinces. Before the discovery of the potato, this excellent dish consisted of lamb or kid and turnips cooked and served together. Later, the term "navarin aux pommes de terre" (potato navarin) was used; the term "aux pommes" indicates the difference between navarin and turnips. Today, mutton is most often used, in preference to lamb and kid. As for potatoes, they have replaced turnips...because they are good in all seasons, whereas turnips are only good for a short time. Navarin needs to be made as simply as possible: neither wine nor sauce should enter into its composition, but the care and skill of a good cook, and above all the choice of mutton.” M. Paillard then offers to provide the readers of the Figaro with "the recipe for navarin ménagère (domestic or home version) as prepared at Maison Paillard, if they wish.” 

In my last post, Part 1 of the navarin d’agneau, we figured out the place the navarin occupied in the culinary world by following the clues in old texts and cookbooks. We came to the conclusion that while the ingredients - mutton, onions, turnips, eventually potatoes - were “lowly”, frugal, available to all, and the cooking method, a long slow simmer to tenderize tougher cuts of meat, both signs of peasant or home cooking, the dish itself was decidedly bourgeoise, even upper class, already a classic in fine dining establishments. And it apparently, for many, still is; the navarin was served at the elegant Maison Paillard to his fashionable clientele, after all. But the idea of the navarin being considered an upper class dish, a meal worthy of sophisticated Paris, has evidently gotten some gastronomic commentators, well, ticked off. One year later, in 1898, writing under the pseudonym Nemo, the columnist for the Veillées des Chaumières (illustrated newspaper appearing every Wednesday and Saturday) uses the innocent navarin as a symbol of a new form of snobbism that has taken over “le Tout-Paris” (the stylish and affluent elite of Paris).

He writes in his column The Magic Lantern: 

“It's not the one that changed the destiny of Greece that you see projected on the screen of my lantern. In this one, we fight only with forks. The battleground is navarin aux pommes (navarin with potatoes), also known as Ragoût de mouton (mutton stew).

Through the many long weeks at the start of winter, Parisian newspapers were filled with the scent of onion and thyme that must accompany any self-respecting navarin. The press, mirror of mores and reflector of infatuations, was not afraid to put the best way to cook mutton stew up for competition. We're sure you'll be pleased to learn that there are several dozen different ways of making this masterpiece, which certainly didn't know its worth.

For a long time, this dish was modest, eaten without a word said, without telling a soul. It used the chops that butchers don't know what to do with, and the shoulder of mutton that it made tender. But in the Republic, everyone knows that obscurity of origin and thinness of merit are no impediment to success at the Assiette-au-Beurre (source of profit).

This is precisely the story of the navarin.

Snobbery - that power - has just cornered him. He declared mutton stew the last word in fine dining. And now, in exclusive circles, the deliciously sugar-coated distraction is to have oneself invited for a mutton stew…. While la petite bourgeoisie (the middle class) has gorged themselves on navarin since the birth of mutton (since the beginning of time), the Blue-Bloods are coming back to the navarin, quite possibly to replenish their red blood.”

And then there is Auguste Escoffier, chef, restaurateur, culinary writer, and cookbook author straddling the 19th and 20th centuries. The esteemed M. Escoffier is known for updating traditional French cooking and cooking methods, often with the home cook in mind. A great admirer, somewhat of a disciple of the great Carême, Escoffier nonetheless set out to and succeeded in simplifying and modernizing Carême’s elaborate and flamboyant style and complicated methods. He is often, mistakenly, credited for giving the name navarin to the mutton stew. I find it curious, then, that in his 1903 Le Guide Culinaire (The Culinary Guide: reference for practical cooking) he includes recipes for a consommé à la Navarin (a clear broth garnished with fresh pea purée poached in molds then sliced into discs, crayfish tails, and parsley), a navarin (fresh pea and lettuce purée garnished with fresh peas, crayfish tails, and parsley), as well as the 2 mutton stews, the navarin and the navarin printanier. Escoffier just seems, a bit like Carême, to toss the word navarin around where he pleases. 

Just a side note: the editors of the first edition of Larousse Gastronomique in 1938 state quite matter of factly: "The word navarin is sometimes wrongly used to designate shellfish or poultry stews. We repeat, this term should only be applied to mutton stews and, by exception, lamb stews.” Tell that to Carême and Escoffier…

Here on out, the navarin has become set in its definition and standards. Although some cookbooks are still listing the navarin and the haricot as one single recipe, most now have a separate recipe for each, side by side. And many are beginning to offer 2 recipes for the navarin, from Escoffier’s Navarin à la Bourgeoise and a Navarin à la paysanne in his 1912 Le Livre des menus, or navarin and navarin printanier in his 1934 Ma Cuisine, or the 1939 professional La Cuisine Moderne Illustrée’s navarin aux pommes and navarin printanier. But, honestly, old habits are hard to break and many in the culinary world can be rather stubborn, so well into the 1980s, I’m still seeing cookbook authors calling it an old ragoût de mouton with an indication, in parenthesis, that it might also be called a navarin.  

When I decided that for Part 2 of my posts on the navarin d’agneau I would offer you a recipe for the navarin printanier, I decided to go back and find the first mention of this now-classic dish that, today, is better known in culinary and gourmand circles than the more rustic version, in a cookbook actually with the name navarin printanier. I can tell you that it wasn’t easy. Escoffier, while not the creator of the navarin nor even the first to use the word to describe a dish, might very well have been one of the first to call a spring vegetable lamb stew a navarin printanier. His 1903 Le Guide Culinaire, as I mentioned above, has separate recipes for a navarin and a navarin printanier, adding new onions, new carrots, new turnips, peas, green beans to the latter. 

Strangely enough, over the next few years, the few times the name navarin printanier was given to a dish was not in cookbooks but rather in local newspapers. Or the oddest of books… A.F. Plicque recommends navarin printanier as part of a summer dietary menu in his 1906 book Traitement de la Tuberculose, mentioning that it is served at both the sanatorium in Alger and d’Hauteville, France. 

Le Franc-parler: independent republican journal of the Friends of Agriculture, says a Navarin de veau printanier was served at a Sunday evening meal on January 7, 1907 where 60 guests of the local agricultural union partook of a meal together to celebrate the anniversary of the creation of the union. The meal was “abundant et fort bien servi” (abundant and well served). Le Journal de Petite Mère, revue familiale (Um…. The newspaper for the little woman, a family magazine?) showcases a recipe for the appropriately named Navarin bonne femme - bonne femme, translates as either good woman or little woman, used at that time for a housewife, is a style of home one-pot cooking. The Navarin bonne femme is a rather elaborate mutton stew with new onions, potatoes and sauce diable, a tomato-based sauce spiced up with vinegar, shallots, Cayenne, and other highly seasoned flavorings. In the 1910 Guides Nilsson, the “refundable guide to Paris”, a navarin printanier is on the menu of the Brasserie Zimmer (“the best beer in all of Paris”). And finally, the October 28, 1911 issue of La Vie Douaisienne, the local newspaper of Le Douai region of France, mentions a navarin printanier in their cooking column dedicated to the Navarin. 

Manuel Pratique de Cuisine Provençale, 1920

It wasn’t for another decade before printanier began appearing in cookbooks - or so I could find - other than Escoffier, as the name for a distinct and separate dish with a specific ingredient list using exclusively new spring vegetables. 

The earliest I could find was Austin de Croze’s excellent Les plats régionaux de France in 1928. He explains that the “ragoût or Navarin de mouton” hails from the region that stretches from the Ile-de-France (Paris) to Champagne, where it was once called “haricot” or “haricot de mouton” and from there spread throughout the country. According to de Croze, there are two versions of this dish, winter (mutton, onions, potatoes, white wine as well as broth) and summer or printanier (the same recipe except using small new potatoes, turnips, celery, peas and green beans. He also includes recipes for both an haricot de mouton and an haricot de mouton printanier, the same as the ragoût/navarin except in both recipes the potatoes are replaced with freshly shucked white beans. 

Even then, navarin printanier was rare. Not even the 3 most important and intense reference books on classic French cuisine, Ali-Bab’s 1928 Gastronomie Pratique, the 1938 L’Art Culinaire Moderne, and the 1950 L’Art Culinaire Français, mention a navarin printanier. Ali-Bab does say that “we can also make a ragoût de mouton jardinière by using a mix of potatoes, carrots, turnips, green beans, peas, small mushrooms, asparagus tips, etc,” jardinière roughly translating to “the gardener’s version” indicating that fresh, seasonal (springtime) vegetables are used. 

We then have to wait until the 1960s for the printanier to find its way into the leading, most beloved and used cookbooks; Françoise Bernard has a recipe for the haricot de mouton (with white haricot beans) and a navarin printanier (with potatoes, peas, new carrots, turnips, onions) in her 1965 Les Recettes Faciles and the 1975 La Cuisine Familiale by Marietta has recipes for a ragoût de mouton (potatoes, turnips, onions), a ragoût printanier (pearl onions, new carrots, small turnips, new potatoes, with tomato paste and wine), and a navarin provençale (garlic, tomato paste, pearl onions, carrots, turnips, potatoes). The third classic popular family cookbook that is used by the French is Je Sais Cuisinier (I Know How to Cook) by Ginette Mathiot (first published in 1932 and republished several times over the decades) and it has only the navarin (turnips, carrots, and onions), no mention of the printanier or anything like it. The great Henri-Paul Pellaprat’s - co-founder of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school - 1955 La Cuisine Familiale, while it has both a ragoût de mouton and an haricot de mouton, doesn’t mention the navarin at all.

Poor Eneas Sweatband Dallas would continue to be so disappointed in the French who insist, to this day, on calling these wonderful dishes Haricot de mouton and Ragoût de mouton, and he might be awfully confused that the navarin is now a separate and independent dish from them both. And while the navarin printanier has become the reference dish when one mentions a navarin at all, popular on food blogs, in magazines, and on restaurant tables, it has taken a very long time for it to come into its own in the written pages of French cookbooks. 

Navarin d’Agneau printanier

Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables

1 kg lamb (sautée d’agneau, boneless shoulder or breast or a combination), cut into 2-inch cubes

Vegetable or olive oil or part oil, part butter/margarine for browning

Pinch sugar (many old recipes add caramel)

Salt, freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons (30 grams) flour

½ cup (125 ml) dry white wine, optional

2 cups light beef stock, broth, or bouillon

Water

2 tablespoons tomato paste or 3 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled, halved and germ removed, and mashed

Frensh thyme or rosemary, dried if you can’t get fresh

Bay leaf

10 or 12 small new or fingerling potatoes, peeled

5 or 6 small new carrots, trimmed and peeled

Turnips, 1 to 3 depending on the size and whether you like them or not (I don’t add them)

12 - 16 small new onions or up to 16 tiny pearl onions, trimmed and peeled

1/2 cup (about 100 grams) fresh or fresh frozen peas (shelled), thawed if frozen

1/4 pound (115 grams) trimmed snow peas or fresh green beans

A dozen asparagus tips (I use local white asparagus), optional

Fresh parsley to garnish

Pat the cubes of meat dry with paper towels. Add a couple tablespoons of oil or a mix of oil and butter or margarine to a large sauteuse, Dutch oven, or heavy-bottomed pot and heat until sizzling. Add the cubes of lamb to the hot fat in a single layer (you can do this in 2 batches, if you need to, adding a little more oil to the pot for the second batch) and allow the meat to brown well on all sides, turning and stirring the meat to evenly brown and to keep it from sticking to the pan. 

If you do this in 2 batches, add all the meat and the juices back to the pot once the meat has all been browned.

Dust the meat with a large pinch of sugar and toss and cook for a couple of minutes to caramelize. Salt and pepper the meat generously then add the flour; stir and toss the meat to evenly coat with the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for a couple of minutes. 

If you like, you can then deglaze the pan with a little white wine by adding the wine and - using a wooden spoon - scraping up anything that has stuck to the bottom of the pan as you toss, stir, and cook for a couple of minutes until most of the wine has evaporated. This will also add flavor to the stew. If not, deglaze the pan when you add the stock.

Add about 2 cups of light beef stock, broth, or bouillon - or just water, if you prefer - as well as the tomato paste or chopped tomatoes and the mashed garlic. Add the bouquet garni or the thyme or rosemary and the bay leaf. Add a bit more liquid if necessary to just cover the meat. Bring to the boil, cover and lower the heat, and allow to simmer for 1 hour.

While the lamb is simmering, prepare all the vegetables, making sure they are all pretty much the same size, cutting into pieces any that are too big (quarter the turnips, halve larger new or fingerling potatoes, cut the carrots in half or in quarters if larger than the small new carrots). Place the potatoes in a bowl of cold water as soon as they are peeled to keep them from turning brown.

At the end of the hour, taste the sauce and add more seasoning, salt and pepper, if needed, then add the drained potatoes, the carrots, turnips, and onions, making sure they are all pressed down under the surface of the liquid - add more liquid if necessary. Bring the liquid back to the boil, cover the pot again, lower the heat and let simmer for another 40 minutes. The vegetables should all be tender after 40 minutes and the sauce will have thickened some, but start checking the vegetables after about 30 minutes of cooking time. 

If garnishing with asparagus tips, steam them until fork tender through. Drain and set aside.

Add the peas and the snow peas or green beans to the stew and allow to cook just until tender. Once the peas and snow peas or beans are tender and the navarin ready to serve, place the cooked asparagus tips atop the stew to heat through.

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