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Asparagus
Trim stalks to uniform length, wash and tie with soft string. Cook in boiling water until tender, keeping the tips above the water for the first ten minutes. Just before cooking is completed, salt the water. Drain, untie, and season with melted butter or butter substitute, salt and pepper. If preferred, the asparagus may be cut into inch pieces. In this case, the stalks are put into the water ten minutes or more before the tips are added. Asparagus may be served with medium white sauce or Hollandaise sauce may be poured over it.
A standing-bundle method from the era before wide skillets became the default asparagus pan. The logic is sound: the woody butts need more heat than the tips.
- The hingeEverything here depends on the tips staying in steam rather than water for the first ten minutes. Stand the tied bundle upright in a deep pot with 2-3 inches of boiling water, or lay the pot lid ajar over the exposed tips to trap steam.
- Timing, revisedTen minutes for the stalks plus more for the tips reflects the thick, mature asparagus of the period. Modern bunches, especially pencil-thin spears, are done in 3-5 minutes total and turn grey and limp at ten. Test the thickest butt with a knife tip and pull it while the spears still have some spring.
- TrimmingRather than cutting all stalks to one length, snap each spear where it breaks naturally, then even up the ends. Very thick spears benefit from peeling the lower third with a vegetable peeler.
- Salting at the endCookbooks of this period often held salt back until the finish, on the reasoning that it toughened vegetables or drew out colour. Any such effect is slight; salting the water from the start gives better-seasoned spears.
- "Butter substitute"In a book of this vintage this means margarine or a vegetable shortening, then heavily promoted as an economy. Butter, or good olive oil, does the job.
- TyingSoft string means plain cotton kitchen twine, not synthetic. It keeps the bundle upright and lets you lift the whole lot out at once without breaking tips.
- SaucesMedium white sauce is a roux of 2 tablespoons each butter and flour to 1 cup milk. Hollandaise should be made while the asparagus cooks and held off direct heat, as it breaks if it gets hot.
- YieldAllow about 1/2 pound of untrimmed asparagus per person as a side dish; a standard one-pound bunch serves two.