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Cream Asparagus
2 bunches asparagus 1/2 cup cream 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Cut the tender parts in bits as long as the stems are thick, and cook in a little water until tender. Toward the last of the cooking let the asparagus cook nearly dry, add the cream and let simmer till reduced to a thick sauce. Add seasonings and serve on toast or in sauce dishes.
A short, unfussy method that depends almost entirely on how much water is left in the pan when the cream goes in. Get that right and the rest follows.
- The hinge: cook nearly dryThe cream is meant to reduce with the asparagus, not to be diluted by cooking liquid. Let the water boil off almost completely before adding it, then simmer only until the cream coats the spears and has thickened, as the recipe directs.
- "2 bunches asparagus"A bunch was not a standard measure; period bunches were commonly tied to something in the region of a pound, so two bunches is a couple of pounds untrimmed, which after snapping off the woody ends will serve a small family as a side dish or two people on toast.
- Cutting to length"As long as the stems are thick" means cut the pieces to match their own diameter — thick spears in short chunks, thin ones a little longer. This is a practical rule for even cooking, not decoration.
- CreamCream of the period was often in the range of modern light cream or half-and-half rather than today's heavy cream, though fat content varied a good deal. Heavy cream will reduce faster and thicker; a scant 1/2 cup is plenty if you use it.
- Cooking timeTrimmed pieces need only 4-6 minutes in a little simmering water; the recipe gives no time, only "until tender."
- Few grains cayenneA genuine pinch — under 1/16 teaspoon. It is there to lift the cream, not to register as heat.
- ServingToast should be dry and firm enough to hold the sauce; a thick slice of white bread toasted hard works better than soft sandwich bread. Salt at the end, after the cream has reduced and concentrated.
Creamed vegetables on toast were common on the American supper table in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and this recipe shows the pattern in its simplest form: cook, reduce, season, pour over a slab of toast. Asparagus in that era was strictly seasonal and briefly abundant. The Gold Medal Flour Cook Book was issued as promotional literature by the Washburn-Crosby milling company, and like other such booklets it surrounded its flour-based recipes with a broad range of everyday household cooking.