Country French Champagne Vegetable Ragout
This recipe is as full of variation as your garden or the produce department of your supermarket! Blanch all
the vegetables first, reserve them, then reduce your cooking liquid with plenty of chopped fresh herbs and a
good bit of champagne. Judge the amounts of vegetables you will need by how many you are feeding--
choose a wide variety for the fun of it. Of course serve the ragout with warm crusty bread so you’ll be able to
enjoy all of the delicious broth.
baby new potatoes or yellow fingerlings, halved or quartered
pearl onions--yellow or red, ends trimmed and peeled
baby carrots, or large, cut into 1 inch lengths
turnip and rutabaga, peeled and diced
asparagus, diagonally sliced
snowpeas, de-stemmed
a few leaves chard, white, red or beautiful rainbow chard, chopped
cooked lentils
as desired: fresh tarragon, dill, thyme, chives, cleaned and chopped
a bit of dijon or stoneground mustard if you like
salt and pepper
a little butter or margarine
champagne
Blanch potatoes, onions, carrots, turnip and rutabaga together ideally
in large cast iron pot with boiling water just to cover, until just tender,
lift into large bowl with slotted spoon. Repeat with asparagus, snow peas
and chopped chard. After removing these from vegetable broth, add
champagne, (no more than 1/3 again as much as the broth is a fairly good
guideline to go by, I usually use even less.) Let broth simmer until reduced by about half, then salt, pepper,
add lentils and a little mustard. Gently replace vegetables into broth, add fresh herbs, then let simmer a few
minutes more to heat and allow flavors to mingle. Ladle into bowls.
