By Leslie Brenner

Ever wonder how the French mark Easter at the table? Traditionally, it’s with something fabulous starring lamb, such as gigot d’agneau flageolets — roasted leg of lamb with flageolet beans.

It’s an impressive presentation that will earn you oohs and aahs — slices of rosy, boneless lamb set atop saucy flageolet beans that are tender, and creamy inside. Pronounced “flah-zho-lay,” they are known as the “caviar” of beans; in France, they’re lamb’s frequent companion.

Gigot d’agneau flageolets is actually pretty easy to prepare, requiring more time than effort (the dried beans need to simmer). The lamb is a boneless leg that you unroll, rub with a paste of herbs, garlic and a little anchovy, roll back up and tie, let sit so the flavors and salt penetrate the meat, then brown on top of the stove and roast in its sauté pan. While the roasted lamb rests, make a quick, lamby pan-sauce that you’ll stir into the beans.

The last-minute act of slicing and plating the whole thing is pretty laid-back (since there’s no bone to contend with), so it’s great for entertaining. And gloriously delicious.

RECIPE: Leg of Lamb with Flageolets

More about flageolets, and how to sub

Pale green when they’re dried, and about the size and shape of a kidney bean, those flageolets are one of my favorite beans — almost elegant, with a beautiful texture. Soak them for four to six hours and they cook up fairly quickly — last time I made them, it was about 90 minutes to tenderness. But you don’t even need to soak them; you can just simmer them a little longer and they still wonderful. If you don’t find them in your local fancy grocery, you can order them from Rancho Gordo.

But you can still approximate this dish even if you don’t have flageolets; navy beans or cannellinis, while not quite as elegant, make a good stand-in. And if you don’t have time to simmer dried beans? You could even used canned cannellinis or navy beans. Just drain three cans of them and use them in place of the cooked flageolets in step 7 of our recipe. In place of the reserved cooking liquid, use some purchased chicken broth or vegetable broth.

Just the lamb, please

Or maybe you’re just not a bean person, but you want to make the lamb. Go ahead and follow the lamb part of our recipe. When you get to the part where you deglaze the pan to make a quick pan sauce, use that to drizzle over the sliced lamb, or pass it at the table for everyone to sauce their own. You can serve the lamb with roasted potatoes and asparagus.

Easter, Passover, any spring celebration

With or without the flageolets, the dish is great for any spring celebration or special dinner — including Passover. (For that holiday, if you serve the lamb with asparagus, as suggested above, you’ll want to leave off the butter, if you you want to keep it kosher for Passover, of course.)

And if you’re only two or three at table, it’s still very much worth doing: You’ll wind up with some pretty spectacular leftovers. Lamb sandwich, anyone?

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

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