Spring Vegetable Ragout

I always enjoy hearing about the inspiration behind a particular dish. If you read, I'm Mad and I Eat, you'll recognize cookiecrumb as a food writer who clues you in to her latest meal right away, with reference to what's happening in her garden, or the local market.

This fabulous Spring Vegetable Ragout was one of those tangential dishes. You know what I mean, one that starts with research into one ingredient and then ends up a totally different dish than you were imagining, requiring completely different ingredients and a trip to the store.

So, here's the story. I recently purchased a bag of flageolet, those French small green oval-shaped beans most commonly associated with cassoulet, really tiny, immature kidney beans with a creamy texture. I was thinking casserole or salad, but looking for pairing inspiration. So I hit the cookbooks and, to be honest, didn't find much inspiration. There was a flageolet and sage sauce in The Millennium Cookbook, but sage wasn't really singing out to me. Suddenly, I thought of Georgeanne Brennan's France: The Vegetarian Table. While I didn't find a recipe for the flageolets, I did find inspiration with her recipe for Spring Vegetable Ragout. So, off to the store, to look for golf size turnips, fresh fava beans, and asparagus.

This is one of those simple, but enormously satisfying vegetarian recipes that one can adapt to the fresh herbs growing in one's garden.  Although this dish benefits a great deal from salty butter, if you're vegan, use olive oil and up the herbs.

Spring Vegetable Ragout (adapted from France: The Vegetarian Table):

1/2 cup of fava beans, depodded and peeled

1 golf sized turnip, peeled and cubed

5 baby dutch potatoes, cubed

6 stalks of asparagus, woody ends removed, cut on the diagonal into 2 " pieces

1 large stalk green (Spring) garlic, outer skin removed, sliced

2 TBS salted butter

4 fingerling carrots, sliced in half lengthwise

pinch of sea salt

pinch of black pepper

pinch of sugar

1/2 cup fresh English peas, podded

1/4 cup white wine

thyme leaves

mint leaves, julienned

chives, snipped

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the potatoes and carrots, cover, and cook over medium-low heat for 5 mintues. Add the turnip, cover, and cook an additional 4 minutes.   Add the green garlic, salt, pepper, and sugar. Cover and cook an additional 4 minutes. Add the fava beans and peas. Cover and cook over low heat for 6-7 minutes.

Add the white wine and reduce by 1/3, uncovered. Add the asparagus, thyme, mint, and chives. Cover and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.