Spring has finally arrived in New England, with a vengeance. I love this time of year with all the trees budding and flowering. The forsythia bloomed this week, and my magnolia is about to burst! The world is finally green.

This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is aptly named. We made Green-As-Spring Stew. The stew features long-simmered chunks of meat finished in a bright emerald green herbaceous sauce. The recipe is actually for a veal stew, but because we don’t usually eat veal, I used pork tenderloin instead. (An internet search for alternatives also suggested turkey.) It worked quite well.

The stew was quite simple. The meat cooks in chicken stock enriched with vegetables. After a long simmer, the vegetable solids are removed, but their flavors are left behind. The stock gets boiled down to further concentrate the flavor (why does this step always take so long???) Finally, a variety of greens and herbs are wilted in the stock before being pureed and mellowed with some tangy creme fraiche.

At the very end, I added a can of artichoke hearts that I drained and quartered along with the remaining sugar snap peas from last week’s vegetables en papillote to give the meat some company.

The first night, I served the stew over couscous, but it worked better when I served it over egg noodles on Night #2.

I enjoyed the pure spring-y flavors of this stew. It was just what we needed after a VERY LONG winter that seemed like it would never end. I hope I remember to make this again next March to remind me that spring will arrive, eventually.

To see what my Dorista friends thought of their spring stews, check out their links here. The recipe can be found here and, of course, at its source, in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.