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Savor The Season With This Delicious Spring Vegetable Stew
This is my favorite way to cook spring vegetables—with as little liquid as possible so that they retain all their color, flavor, and nutrients. Choose the smallest, sweetest vegetables you can find, using the recipe as a guideline rather than a formula: I might add small turnips, trimmed baby artichokes, young fennel, or broccolini. You can serve it with roast chicken or fish, but I love this stew on its own as a starter or light lunch.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 spring onions, white and pale green parts only, cut into ¼-inch (0.5-cm) rounds
- Sea salt
- 8 skinny carrots, cut diagonally into 2-inch (5-cm) lengths (no need to peel them if they are young)
- 8 fingerling potatoes, cut lengthwise in half (no need to peel)
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 garlic clove, smashed with the flat side of a knife and peeled
- Up to 1 cup (240 ml) vegetable stock, homemade (page 355) or store-bought, or water
- 8 asparagus spears about ½-inch (1-cm) thick, tough ends removed and discarded, cut diagonally into 2-inch (5-cm) lengths
- 1¼ cups shelled fresh peas (1 pound/450 g in the shell; you can also use frozen peas or leave them out)
- Freshly ground black pepper
For serving:
- Good-quality extra-virgin olive oil
- Fleur de sel
- Arugula leaves
- Parmesan shavings
Method
- Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the spring onions and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until the onions soften, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the carrots, potatoes, thyme, garlic, and ½ cup (120 ml) of the vegetable stock or water, cover, and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables start to soften.
- Add the asparagus and another pinch of salt, then add more vegetable stock or water if needed to cover the bottom of the pan. Cover and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until all the vegetables are almost tender.
- Add the peas and cook for 2 to 3 minutes if fresh, 5 to 6 minutes if frozen, until just cooked. Season with pepper.
- Serve the vegetables warm with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of fleur de sel. Top with arugula leaves and Parmesan shavings.
Excerpted from Niçoise: Market-Inspired Cooking From France's Sunniest City. Copyright © 2024 by Rosa Jackson. Photographs © 2024 by Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen. Used with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
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