Name: Stew of Spring Vegetables (Ragoût Printanier)
Yield: Makes 6 First-Course or Side-Dish Servings or Garnitures
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: 1 pint (10 ounces [280 g]) pearl onions, or 12 walnut-size boiling onions; 12 baby turnips, unpeeled; or 2 medium-size turnips or 1 medium-size celeriac (about ¾ pound [340 g], peeled); 1 pound [450 g] fresh baby peas, shucked (about 1 cup), or 1 package (10 ounces [280 g]) frozen baby peas, thawed; salt; 12 baby carrots, scraped, or 3 medium-size carrots, peeled; ½ pound [225 g] baby string beans (ideally, haricots verts), ends broken off, the string beans cut into 2-inch [5-cm] lengths; ½ cup [125 ml] heavy cream; 10 ounces [280 g] small-to-medium cremini or regular cultivated mushrooms; 2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley, chervil, or chives, or a combination; 1 tablespoon butter (for the carrots and turnips), plus 3 tablespoons (for the sauce); 1 teaspoon sugar; pepper

Preparation info

Makes
6
First-Course or Side-Dish Servings or Garnitures

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Glorious French Food

By James Peterson

Published 2002

About

In classic cooking, this little stew of carrots, turnips, pearl onions, string beans, and peas is made by cooking all the vegetables separately. The carrots and turnips are glazed using two methods, and the peas and string beans are cooked separately with lots of boiling salted water, a method the French call cooking “à l’anglaise”. The mushrooms are steamed, and the liquid they release provides the base for a small amount of sauce that coats the vegetabl