No. 2692

Boiled Asparagus with Hollandaise, Hollandaise Mousseline or Vinaigrette Sauce

Asperges Bouillies a la Sauce Hollandaise a la Sauce Hollandaise Mousseline

Have the asparagus freshly picked, if practicable; trim the tops, and scrape or peel the stalks; then pare them into equal lengths, and tie them in small bunches, separating the larger ones from the smaller. Fasten them well with string. Boil the asparagus in plenty of salted water in an untinned copper basin, plunging them into the liquid; cover the vessel and let cook slowly. As soon as they are done drain them on a sieve, and afterward untie the bunches on a cloth and dress them symmetrically in a pyramid on a folded napkin; carefully reserve the handsomest ones for the top. Send to the table at the same time a good Hollandaise sauce (No. 477), or else a vinaigrette sauce.

Vinaigrette.—Put into a vessel six-hard-boiled egg-yolks rubbed through a sieve, smooth nicely while beating with a spoon, and incorporate slowly two gills of good oil, two spoonfuls of cold veloute sauce (No. 415), a little vinegar, mustard, pepper, chopped parsley or chervil. Serve this sauce the same time as the asparagus, or else serve them with a Hollandaise mousseline sauce (No. 477).

← No. 2691 Artichokes-Whole-Boiled, with White or Vinai Artichokes & Asparagus No. 2693 Asparagus, Countess Style-Heads →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's method is sound apart from two things: the vessel and the doneness. Everything else is a matter of translating his measures.

Skip the untinned copperUnlined copper was used to keep green vegetables bright, and salted cooking water will pull copper into the food. Boil the asparagus in a wide stainless or enamelled pan instead; a pinch of salt and a short cooking time keep the color well enough.
"Let cook slowly" is the one thing to ignoreCovered, slow-simmered asparagus turns olive-drab and limp. Trimmed spears want a hard boil, uncovered, 3 to 5 minutes for pencil-thin and 5 to 8 for thick, until a knife slides into the base with slight resistance. Drain the moment they are done.
Tying in bunchesStill worth doing with kitchen twine if you are cooking several pounds, because it lets you lift the whole lot out at once. Sort thick from thin and cook them separately as directed, or the thin spears collapse while the thick ones are raw.
PeelingHis "scrape or peel the stalks" applies to thick spears, where the lower two thirds have a fibrous skin. A vegetable peeler from just below the tip downward is quicker than the old scraping knife. Thin spring asparagus needs only the woody ends snapped off.
A gill is half a cupTwo gills of oil is one cup, beaten into six sieved hard-boiled yolks. In nineteenth-century books of this kind an unqualified "spoonful" is generally taken to mean a tablespoon, so two spoonfuls of velout"},{
If you have no veloutéNo. 415 is a white stock sauce thickened with roux, used here to loosen the sauce and give it body. Two tablespoons of cold, unsalted chicken stock thickened lightly, or simply a spoonful of crème fraîche, does the same job. The result is closer to a modern sauce gribiche than to a shaken vinaigrette.
Hollandaise mousselineHollandaise folded through with an equal quantity, or rather less, of unsweetened whipped cream, added off the heat just before serving. It cannot be reheated or held for long.
Serving and yieldThe folded napkin absorbs draining water and keeps the pyramid from sliding; a warmed platter lined with a linen napkin still works. Figure about 1/2 lb of untrimmed asparagus per person, so a 3 lb bundle serves six with the yolk sauce, which makes roughly a cup and a half.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894, and its asparagus entries reflect how the vegetable was regarded at the time: a short-season luxury, cooked whole and presented as an object rather than chopped into a dish. The pyramid on a folded napkin, the reservation of the handsomest spears for the top, and the sauce sent separately are all standard nineteenth-century French service. The untinned copper basin belongs to the same tradition, copper being the classical vessel for green vegetables and for beating egg whites; the reasoning about color has some basis even though the practice is not one to carry forward. The hard-yolk vinaigrette given here, thick with oil and mounted on sieved yolks, is closer to a mayonnaise than to the oil-and-vinegar dressing the term now implies.