No. 1755

Stewed Lamb, Navarin

Ragout d'Agneau Navarin

Suppress all the bones of a leg of lamb, remove the fat and sinews, then cut it up into squares an inch and a half in size; put these pieces into a bowl to season with salt and pepper, adding a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme, bay leaf, garlic and cloves, also some Madeira wine, let marinate for seven hours; after the lapse of this time drain the meat and fry with grated fat pork and half a pound of small dice pieces of blanched bacon; moisten with the Madeira from the marinade adding also the aromatics and some brown sauce (No. 414); cook the whole over a slow fire for two and a half hours skimming and adding half a bottleful of white wine. After the stew has been cooking for one hour put in with it a quart of fried and slightly browned turnip balls. Three-quarters of an hour later both meat and turnips should be done, skim nicely, season to taste and serve, dressing the meat in the center of the dish, the turnips around and the strained sauce over all.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's navarin is a straightforward braise dressed up with a long Madeira marinade and a garnish of turned turnips. A few of his quantities and timings need translating before you start.

The seven-hour marinadeMarinate the cubed lamb in the refrigerator, not at room temperature as a nineteenth-century larder would have allowed. Drain and pat the meat dry before browning or it will steam rather than color.
Brown sauce No. 414That cross-reference is Ranhofer's espagnole, a long-simmered brown stock thickened with browned roux. A good reduced veal stock or a commercial demi-glace does the same job; count on about a pint for a leg's worth of meat.
Grated fat pork and blanched bacon"Grated fat pork" is fresh or salt pork fat scraped fine and rendered as the frying medium; roughly two ounces is enough. Blanching the diced bacon two or three minutes in simmering water removes excess salt and smoke, which matters here because the sauce reduces.
Turnip ballsA quart is about a liter by volume; allow appreciably more weight of turnip than that before trimming, since scooping balls wastes a great deal. Cut them with a large parisienne scoop and brown them in fat with a pinch of sugar; they hold their shape in the braise far better than rough chunks.
Cooking timeTwo and a half hours is longer than cubed leg needs today; modern lamb is tender in about an hour and a half at a bare simmer. Note that Ranhofer's own timings do not reconcile: he puts the turnips in after one hour and says both meat and turnips are done three-quarters of an hour later, though he asks for two and a half hours in total. Thirty to forty-five minutes for the turnips is enough, or they will disintegrate.
Oven or stovetop"A slow fire" means the liquid barely trembles. Ranhofer cooks this over the fire rather than in the oven; if you use a covered pot in the oven instead, keep the heat low enough that the braise never rises above a bare simmer.
The wineHalf a bottleful is about 12 fluid ounces of dry white. Add it with the stock rather than at the end so the alcohol cooks off across the braise.
FinishingStrain the sauce as directed and, if it is thin, reduce it separately while the meat rests. Yield is roughly eight servings from a boned leg of four to five pounds.

A Little History

Navarin is the classic French lamb or mutton stew garnished with root vegetables, and its name is generally traced to navet, the turnip that defines the dish; the popular link to the naval Battle of Navarino in 1827 is usually treated as folk etymology rather than documented fact. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, included it in The Epicurean (1894) among dozens of lamb preparations, each keyed by number to the sauces and stocks in the earlier chapters, so that a professional kitchen could work the book like a system rather than a collection. His version is noticeably grander than the bistro standard: a long Madeira marinade, blanched bacon, espagnole, and turnips turned into uniform balls, all signs of a restaurant brigade with the labor to spare.