Asparagus Salad
Cook asparagus in the usual way, drain and slip three or four spears through an onion ring just large enough to hold them. Arrange these fagots in nests of crisp lettuce heart leaves. Just before serving pour over French Dressing to which has been added one tablespoon of finely chopped chives. A band of red or green pepper may be used in place of the onion ring. Canned asparagus should first be drained from the liquor in the can then rinsed with cold water. Chilled and served as directed in the foregoing.
A composed salad rather than a cooked dish, so the work is in the boiling and the chilling. Two details carry it: asparagus cooked just past raw, and everything cold before the dressing goes on.
- "The usual way"Period cookbooks generally directed boiling asparagus in salted water far longer than we would now, often twenty minutes or more, which collapses it. Simmer or steam trimmed spears 3-5 minutes until a knife tip meets slight resistance, then shock in ice water so they hold their shape inside the onion ring.
- Choose thick spearsPencil-thin asparagus will not survive being threaded through a ring or standing up in a bundle. Buy spears at least half an inch across and trim them to a uniform length so the fagots sit level.
- Cutting the onion ringSlice a medium sweet onion crosswise about a quarter-inch thick and push out the middle rings, which are the right diameter for three or four spears. Thinner rings tear when you thread them; if the onion is sharp, soak the rings in ice water for ten minutes.
- The pepper band alternativeFor the red or green pepper version, cut a half-inch ring from the widest part of a bell pepper, or cut a strip and overlap the ends. Raw pepper is stiffer than onion, so thread the spears before the ring has any chance to dry out and split.
- French DressingIn this period that means a simple oil-and-vinegar dressing, roughly three parts oil to one of vinegar with salt and pepper -- not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under the name today. Whisk it fresh and add the chives at the last moment, since they bruise and dull in acid.
- Dress at the tablePouring dressing over asparagus early makes it limp and drab. Assemble the nests, chill them, and dress immediately before they leave the kitchen.
- Canned asparagusThe rinse in the original is worth keeping -- canning liquor is salty and metallic. Canned spears are also very soft, so lay the bundles in the lettuce rather than trying to stand them up.
- YieldFigure one bundle of three or four spears per person as a side salad; a pound of thick asparagus makes about three or four bundles. Use the inner heart leaves of a head of romaine or butter lettuce for the nests.
This is salad as arrangement, which is what the word largely meant on an American middle-class table around 1900: the interest lay in the shape on the plate as much as the flavor. "Fagot" is the old word for a small bound bundle of sticks, borrowed here for asparagus tied with an onion ring, and cookbooks of the period are full of similar conceits -- vegetables in rings, aspic in molds, lettuce cups used as edible dishes. The instructions call for canned asparagus, which tells you something in itself: fresh asparagus had a short local season and cost accordingly, so a recipe of this kind had to work either way. Asparagus belongs firmly to spring, and its appearance is a seasonal marker as much as a recipe.