Estouffade d'Agneau à la Provençale

Ann has been thinking a lot recently about dishes she wants me to make. She had been leafing through a French country cookbook and was intrigued by a Provençale farmhouse recipe for a lamb stew. At her urging, I bought a lamb shoulder at the farmers market a couple of weeks back and set out to make a stew.

My stew is modeled on one called an estouffade which can also be called a daube after the daubière, the specialized pot in which the stew cooks. By either moniker, this stew is made most typically from red meat, lamb or beef, that has been marinated with vegetables and red wine and then cooked slowly in a covered braising dish of the cook's choice, be it cocotte, doufeu, or daubière.

The word estouffade might seem familiar to you as it is to me. When I was a teenager in Alabama, I was highly influenced by Cajun cuisine which calls certain stews étouffées. Both words come from the verb étouffer meaning to smother, but are distanced from each other in time and by an ocean, the one being Parisian French and the other Acadian French, the form of French that migrated to first Québec in the 1600s and then later to the bayou country of south Louisiana. In the latter half of the 20th century in Cajun country, étouffée move further away from estouffade to become a roux-based stew of shellfish, typically shrimp or crawfish, less commonly of crab or white fish.

Estouffade d'Agneau; Purée de Celeri-Rave

Enough with the language history and on with the lamb stew that you can see on a pile of celery root purée. At the farmers market, I picked up a couple of nice celery roots, the first of the year, with an eye towards braising chunks of them in the stew instead of potatoes. But after lugging them home, I decided to turn them into a purée and serve the estouffade over them.

You can see how transparent the broth is and it's just what I wanted for a home dinner. But for restaurant service, I would have reduced the broth and amped it with lamb glace and potentially have thickened it with a beurre manié, a mixture of butter and flour kneaded into a ball. I would have also cooked the vegetables separately and combined everything at the last second before plating. But then, that just wouldn't be home cooking, would it?

A stew is something that you are supposed to throw in the oven or on a back burner and forget about, not slave over. The French even have an awesome verb, mijoter, that captures this idea of throwing something on low heat and forgetting about it and letting it do its thing until it achieves awesomeness. Sure, we have braise and we have simmer, but they don't capture the full essence or insouciance of mijoter.

Making a daube or estouffade is at least a two-day process. On the first day, you prep and marinate the lamb and vegetables and make the stock. You cook and serve the lamb on day two, or as in my case, on day three.

Lamb Shoulder, Carrots, Leeks, Rosemary Ready to Marinate

First, break down the lamb shoulder, cubing the lamb into chunks while reserving the trim to make a stock in which to braise the stew. Put the lamb in a large bowl.

Next, prep the vegetables: carrots in chunks and leeks, sliced into centimeter-wide coins. More traditionally, cooks use onions, but I had some beautiful leeks that I wanted to use. Add the vegetables to the lamb.

Add whatever herbs you want: I opted for rosemary only. Add seasoning: garlic, salt, pepper, and orange zest. Orange zest is a sometimes added to Provençale stews along with olives and rosemary. This happens to be a flavor combination that resonates with me, so that's what I did.

Toss everything together with a half a bottle of red wine and then put it in the refrigerator at least overnight. My lamb marinated two nights because I wasn't ready to cook it the next day.

Lamb Trim for Stock

Lamb shoulder contains a lot of fat and gristle, unlike the leg which is leaner. I prefer shoulder for stews because it braises out more tender than leg, though either will do. You could even start with pre-cubed kebab meat, but then you won't be able to make stock from the trim.

You can see that I got a lot of trim. In fact, from a 2.4-pound lamb shoulder, I only got a pound and a quarter of lamb cubes to stew.

Browning Trim for Stock

To make the stock, brown the trim well, to the point where all the surfaces are caramelized as you can see in the photo above. When they are brown, pour off as much of the fat as you can and then add water. I added a quart of water and brought the stock down to a cup and a half. And then I added another quart of water and did it again.

Stock, Ready to Refrigerate

Once the stock has reduced, I like to refrigerate it overnight so that I can pop the layer of fat right off the top and discard it. There are lots of ways to degrease a stock, but for a dish that takes two days to make, you might as well let the refrigerator do the hard work.

Estouffade Almost Ready for Oven

When you cook the lamb, you have two options. You can separate the lamb from the marinade, pat it dry with paper towels, and brown it. Or, you can just dump it in a pan and start cooking. You get slightly different flavors: a rich caramelized lamb flavor versus a lighter, fresher lamb flavor.

In my house, browning the lamb isn't an option. Because the lamb has been marinated and is full of liquid, it takes a very high flame to brown it, even after it has been patted dry. That is absolutely guaranteed to set off my smoke detector, so browning is out for me. Moreover, I did not want any added fat from browning the meat.

Some people would separate the lamb from the marinade and then cook the marinade to reduce the liquid in it. I didn't feel like going this extra step. It would have resulted in a thicker, darker sauce, but I was aiming for a lighter, less heavy dish.

This is the point at which you would add any ingredients that were not in the marinade. For my part, I added a couple dozen black olives as would be typically done in Provence. I also fished out the rosemary sprigs and, as you can see above, I put the lamb stock in the pan. Some people would also add some tomatoes at this point, but that's not the flavor that I wanted.

The pan went into a moderate oven (about 350F) covered for about three hours and uncovered for a final half hour to help concentrate the braising juices slightly.

Once the lamb was done and cooling, I made a batch of celery root purée and then served dinner. Because I was careful to limit the fat (carefully prepping the lamb, defatting the stock, no added olive oil, no thickening of the sauce with beurre manié, and no butter or cream in the celery root), we ended up with a pretty light and fairly healthy dinner.

Estouffade d'Agneau à la Provençale

The following recipe will feed four people easily and six if necessary. Allow two days to make this stew.

2-1/2 pound lamb shoulder, or 1-1/4 pounds of lamb cubes

10-12 medium carrots, in chunks

2 large leeks, in centimeter-wide rings

8 sprigs rosemary

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

8 cloves garlic, minced

zest of one orange

half a bottle of red wine

1-1/2 cups lamb stock

24 Nyons or other black olives

Follow the detailed procedure above. To recap, mix the lamb, carrots, leeks, rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic, orange zest, and red wine. Refrigerate at least overnight, stirring from time to time. Place the marinated lamb in a baking dish and remove the rosemary. Add the olives and lamb stock. Cover the dish and bake until the lamb is almost done. Uncover and cook another half an hour.