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Asparagus in Ambush
1 quart of asparagus tips, 1 pint of milk, 1 ounce of butter, I long, stale loaf of bread, 4 eggs (yolks), Salt and pepper to taste.
Wash the asparagus tips, throw them into boiling water, add a teaspoonful of salt and boil fifteen minutes; then drain in a colander. Cut the bread into slices one and a half inches in thickness, remove the crusts; mark out the centre and remove the crumbs, leaving the slice in the form of a perfectly square box, the walls and bottom about one and a half inches thick. Brush the outside with melted butter and put into a quick oven until a golden brown. Fill the asparagus tips into the centres; arrange them on a neatly folded napkin. Stand them in a warm place while you make the sauce.
Put the milk on to heat in a double boiler, beat the yolks of the eggs until light, then stir them into the hot milk; stir until they just begin to thicken. Take quickly from the fire, add the butter, salt and pepper; pour this carefully into the boxes and serve at once.
ASPARAGUS, à la HOLLANDAISE.
I bundle of asparagus, 2 tablespoonfuls of flour, 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice, I bay leaf, 2 ounces of butter, Yolks of two eggs, 1 teaspoonful of onion juice, 1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley.
Wash, trim and boil the asparagus as directed for boiled asparagus. When done, drain and arrange neatly in a flat vegetable dish. Put the butter in a saucepan; when melted, add the flour; mix until smooth. Add a half pint of the water in which the asparagus was boiled; stir continually until boiling; add the bay leaf, onion, salt and pepper to taste. Stand this over hot water for five minutes; strain, add the parsley chopped fine, and the well-beaten yolks of the eggs; take from the fire and add the lemon juice. Pour this over the asparagus and serve as a vegetable course, by itself.
Two recipes here: asparagus tips served in hollowed bread cases with a yolk-thickened custard, and asparagus under a mock hollandaise built on the cooking water. Both are straightforward once the timings are corrected.
- Cut the asparagus boiling shortFifteen minutes turns tips to grey mush. Thin tips need 2-3 minutes in salted boiling water, thicker ones 4-5, until just tender to a knife tip. Drain well so the bread cases do not go soggy.
- Quick ovenRead that as 425-450F. The buttered bread boxes need 8-12 minutes at that heat; check at 8, since stale bread colours fast and the corners scorch first.
- The bread casesThese are croustades. A long stale loaf means an unsliced sandwich or Pullman loaf, at least a day old so it cuts cleanly. Cut 1 1/2-inch slices, trim the crusts, score a square inside the top and lift out the crumb with a small knife, leaving walls and floor about 1/2 inch thick rather than the 1 1/2 inches the text specifies, which would leave almost no cavity.
- The custard sauce is the hingeA pint of milk with four yolks and no starch will scramble if it goes much above 180F. Keep it in the double boiler, stir constantly, and pull it the moment it coats the spoon. If it breaks, strain it and start again; there is nothing to rescue.
- Assemble at the last minuteBread cases hold liquid for a couple of minutes at best. Have the tips hot, the sauce finished, and the plates ready, then fill and carry them straight to the table. The folded napkin is Victorian presentation and can be skipped.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion and press the pulp through a fine sieve, or press a cut onion against a box grater. A teaspoon is what you get from a small onion; a pinch of grated onion works if you would rather not fuss.
- Not a true hollandaiseThe second recipe is a velouté made with asparagus cooking water, thickened with roux and enriched with yolks. Add the yolks off the heat and do not return the pan to a burner, or the sauce will curdle. Salt it carefully, since the asparagus water already carries salt.
- YieldA quart of tips and four yolks will fill about four bread cases, one per person, though the recipe gives no yield. The second recipe is directed to be served as a separate vegetable course, by itself.
"In ambush" is nineteenth-century menu language for food concealed inside something else, usually a hollowed bread or pastry case; French cookery called the case a croustade, and the same phrase turns up in period cookery writing applied to other fillings, sweetbreads among them. The conceit belonged to a period when asparagus was a short-season luxury worth dressing up, and when a vegetable course might be served on its own rather than beside the meat. The second recipe shows how loosely "hollandaise" was used in household books of the era: rather than an emulsion of butter and yolks, it is a flour-thickened sauce made from the asparagus water and finished with yolks and lemon, a thriftier construction that also salvages the flavour poured down the drain when the pot is drained.