Navarin d'agneau, Tarte Tatin

I am a com-pulsive buyer, this is no secret to those who know me (and some of those who don't :-)). One of my recent acquisitions was a set of expensive porcelain oven cookware from Emile Henry. And with it I have also acquired a desire for pot-cooking in the oven :-).

So this morning I hunted high and low for my kg of leg of lamb, a few types of mushrooms, NEW onions, garlic and potatoes, sweet peas, Dutch peas (haricots mange-tout), baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, red peppers, fresh thyme...

I have decided to make a Navarin d'agneau. It's a kind of lamb pot with vegetables. Something you put into an Emile Henry pot and cook for 2 hours in an oven :-).

As usual, it's a simple dish. Just heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and brown the lamb cut into big cubes in it. As the meat is browning, add in the chopped new onions, garlic and thyme. Cook for another 10 minutes and then sprinkle in 2 Tbsps of flour. Stir and let it brown a little.

Pour everything into a pot with a cover that can go into an oven. Add in about 3/4 l of chicken stock, a bay leaf and the tomatoes, cover the pot, put it into the oven and cook for 1h30 at 180ºC.

At the end of the 1.5 hours, add in everything else, cover and cook for another 30 minutes. As you like it, you can make it very saucy or with thicker gravy. Serve hot with rice, fresh tagliatelles, or if you didn't add in potatoes in the first place, with some pan-fried potatoes. This kind of dishes are often even better heated up again the next day. So I've made a big pot to last 2-3 days (to be served to different audience, of course).

So this dish I'll be serving first of all to my Colombian girlfriend and a new French friend I've recently made through her for lunch. And for dessert, I'll follow through with a Tarte Tartin, having seen lovely apples for sale in the open market in Stuttgart this morning. It would have been ideal if I could find la Reine des Reinettes, but having failed to do so, a few Braeburns will do quite nicely.

It would be adviseable to make the puff pastry oneself, but since I'm quite lazy and as I would already have hosted 10 women and their assorted offspring from my German class for tea in the morning (it's our last class, we're having an International tea party), I'm going to use ready-made puff pastry from the supermarket.

First peel and cut about 3-4 apples into slices (thickness etc as you wish). Heat up the oven to 180ºC. Put 4-5 Tbsps of sugar and 2 Tbsps of water into a pie baking tin and when the oven is hot, put it in near the grill to make a caramel. Watch over it to make sure that it does not burn. When the caramel is ready, take the tin out of the oven, spread the apple slices nicely all over, sprinkle in some ground cinnamon, more sugar (to taste), a few slices of butter (normal or salted). Put the tin back into the oven for 10 minutes. Take it out and let the apples cool for a few minutes.



Cover the apples with the puff pastry (use a fork to poke some holes in it so that it doesn't fluff up weirdly) and put the tin back into the oven (middle shelf). It should cook for between 20 and 30 minutes.

When the tart is ready, take it out of the oven, let it cool for a little while and then flip it over with the help of a big plate. The caramelised apples are on top of the puff pastry. Serve it hot with some vanilla ice cream or whipped cream and why not both?