Leg of Lamb with Flageolets (Gigot d’Agneau Flageolets)

Gigot d’agneau flageolets — leg of lamb with flageolet beans — is a classic of French home cooking. Frequently served for Easter, it’s wonderful anytime.

Our recipe, which is easier to put together than the lengthy recipe would suggest, stars an herb-and-garlic-filled boned leg of lamb that gets roasted, sliced and served on braised flageolets. Putting the whole thing together requires very little last-minute moves, so the dish is great for entertaining.

READ: Spring Feast, French-style: Leg of lamb with flageolet beans

The beans are soaked in the morning (if you’re serving the gigot for dinner) or the night before (if you’re serving it for lunch), and then simmered with aromatics. While the beans are soaking, you can prepare confit garlic cloves, then prep the lamb — applying a rub, rolling and tying it; the rub and its salt do their work while it rests. Meltingly tender with soft, deep garlic flavor, those garlic cloves are fantastic to have in the fridge (be sure to store them separately from the oil they cooked in), so we like to make more than we’ll need. You can skip that step and use crushed raw garlic in the rub, if you like. But we prefer the softer flavor of the confit, and it’s so easy to make.

Searing the lamb in a skillet before roasting it gives the outside nice caramelization; you plop the skillet right in the oven, and the searing step means there will be plenty of flavorful bits stuck to the pan, which you can then deglaze while the lamb is resting; you’ll add that delicious sauce to the beans.

Flageolets are one of our all-time favorite beans; we love the heirloom flageolets from Rancho Gordo, which are a pale green color before they’re cooked. The bean is creamy and tender, with wonderful flavor; it has been called the “caviar of beans.” We find that soaking them 4 to 6 hours is adequate — no need to soak them overnight. In fact, you don’t need to soak them at all; they’ll just take longer to cook if you skip the soak.

Our recipe calls for a small butterflied lamb of about 3 1/2 to 4 pounds (1.5 to 1.8 kilos); this is about what the boneless legs from New Zealand typically weigh. We actually prefer American lamb for its superior flavor and texture, and for the fact that’s it’s not flown halfway around the planet to get to us. Those legs are much larger; if you want to use one, great — just double the amount of filling for the lamb. You’ll need a very large sauté pan to hold it, and increase the cooking time.

In France, the dish would typically be served without any sauce, as the beans would be considered saucy enough. We love to pass our Tangy Green Everything Sauce with it.

Serves 5 - 6.

Ingredients

For STEP ONE OF the flageolets

1 pound / 454 g flageolets

Salt

Half an onion, peeled and studded with 3 cloves

1 carrot, peeled and cut in half

1 stalk celery, cut in half

2 bay leaves

3 thyme sprigs

For the confit garlic cloves

2 (or more) garlic cloves, peeled

Enough olive oil to cover the garlic cloves in a small saucepan

For the lamb

One boneless leg of lamb, about 3 1/2 to 4 pounds (1.5 to 1.8 kilos)

4 branches rosemary, leaves stripped off and chopped

1 teaspoon chopped thyme leaves

3 olive-oil-packed anchovies, chopped

2 confit garlic cloves

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

For Step Two of the Flageolets

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 onion, cut into small dice (or chopped)

1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into small dice

3 sprigs thyme

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 recipe flageolets, drained — with the liquid reserved

To finish

1 medium shallot, minced

1/2 cup / 120 ml white wine

Rosemary sprigs and/or thyme sprigs for garnishing

Instructions

1. Rinse the beans, put them in a pot and cover with a couple inches of water; add a tablespoon of salt. Soak 4 to 6 hours. Drain and put them back in the pot.

2. Bury the half-onion, carrots, celery, bay leaves and thyme sprigs in the beans. Cover again with a couple inches of water (I use filtered water at this point), add a teaspoon of salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Don’t worry if vegetables pop out; you can push them down again later. Boil for about 10 minutes, then turn the heat to low to maintain a gentle simmer. Partially cover the pot and simmer, stirring now and then, until the beans are nearly tender. There should always be enough water so they’re brothy; if necessary, add boiling water as needed. Add salt to taste (probably another teaspoon or so), and continue cooking until they’re tender and creamy. Last time I did this, they cooked in about 90 minutes, but again, it depends on their freshness.

3. Fish out and discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs, onion and celery. Retrieve the carrot pieces and, if you like, dice them and add them back to the pot. (Or you can eat them, along with the celery.) Taste the beans and adjust the seasoning, adding salt, if necessary. (At this point, they’d be ready to eat — if you want to enjoy them on their own. If so, you might want to finish them with a drizzle of olive oil.)

4. Make the confit garlic: While the beans are cooking, place the garlic cloves in the smallest saucepan you have, and cover them with olive oil. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then reduce heat to the lowest possible and let them cook gently for about half an hour, till they’re very soft. Remove the garlic cloves, set two of them aside for the lamb rub, and save the rest, refrigerated, for another use. (For food-safety reasons, store the cloves separately from the oil.)

4. Unfold the lamb on a cutting board, and use the tip of a small knife to remove any hard fat you see between the muscles. Don’t remove any fat covering the outside of the leg.

5. In a small bowl, combine the rosemary and thyme leaves, the anchovies, the confit garlic, a teaspoon of the salt and about half a teaspoon of the pepper. Use a fork to mash the garlic, and mix everything together. Spread the mixture as evenly as you can on the inside of the lamb — then rub it into the meat well. Roll the lamb back up and tie it with butcher string to hold its shape. Set it on a sheet pan or plate and let it rest like that, uncovered, in the fridge for four to six hours or overnight. (If you don’t have time to do this, no worries; it’ll still be good even if it doesn’t rest with the rub.)

6. When you’re ready to roast the lamb, heat the oven to 375 degrees F / 191 C. In an oven-proof sauté pan large enough to hold the lamb, heat the olive oil till it’s hot but not smoking. Brown the lamb all over, starting with its fat side — about 10 or 12 minutes total. Place the lamb fat-side up in the pan and transfer the pan to the oven. Roast until it’s medium-rare or medium — 130 to 135 F / 54 to 57 C on an instant-read thermometer, about 50 to 65 minutes. Transfer the lamb to a cutting board to rest about 10 or 15 minutes.

7. While the lamb is roasting, prepare the flageolets. Warm the olive oil in a large sauté pan, add the onion, carrot and thyme and sauté till the onions are soft and translucent and the carrots are tender, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the drained flageolets and stir gently to combine, then add a spoonful or two of the reserved cooking liquid, so the beans are saucy but not soupy. Remove from heat and set aside.

8. When the lamb is done and resting, reheat the beans, if necessary, adding a little cooking liquid if necessary. Now, being sure to use an oven mitt (the sauté pan handle will be very hot!), pour off most of the fat from pan, leaving about two tablespoons of nice drippings. Place the pan over medium-low heat, add the shallot and cook till soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the white wine, turn the heat to high and deglaze the pan, using a wooden spoon to dislodge the browned bits. Continue cooking until the sauce is reduced by about half and has nice body. You can add all of it to the flageolets, stirring it in, or save a tablespoon or two two spoon over the lamb.

9. Remove the string from the lamb, and cut it (across the grain) into slices. Put the beans on a platter, arrange the lamb slices over it and garnish with the rosemary sprigs.