No. 2694

Asparagus in Small Bunches-Heads

Tetes d'Asperges en Petites Bottes

Scrape the stalks of some medium-sized asparagus; cut them from the top end into two and a half inch lengths, and with these form small bunches, holding them together by two rings cut from a carrot about two inches in diameter; cook them in salted water. Use these small bunches for garnishing hot or cold removes, pouring a little Hollandaise sauce (No. 477) over, or else a vinaigrette sauce (No. 634), both to be well seasoned.

← No. 2693 Asparagus, Countess Style-Heads Artichokes & Asparagus No. 2695 Asparagus Tops a la Maintenon →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnish rather than a dish: asparagus tips tied into little bundles with rings of carrot, boiled, and sauced. The technique is straightforward once the carrot rings make sense.

The carrot ringsRanhofer means slices cut crosswise from a fat carrot roughly two inches across, then hollowed out to leave a ring — a napkin ring of carrot that the tips are threaded through. A large carrot from the supermarket rarely reaches two inches; look for a thick winter carrot, or substitute a strip of leek green or kitchen twine if presentation allows.
Cut lengthTwo and a half inches from the tip, which is roughly 6 cm. Save the trimmed stalks for soup or purée; nothing in this recipe uses them.
ScrapingScraping or peeling the stalks was routine practice in kitchens of this period; the recipe calls for medium-sized spears. Slim spears need no peeling at all; on thick ones, peel the lower third with a swivel peeler.
Cooking timeThe recipe gives no time, only "cook them in salted water." Tips of this size need 2 to 4 minutes in heavily salted boiling water, until the stalk bends but the tip still holds. Overcooked tips will slip out of their carrot rings.
Cold serviceFor the vinaigrette version, shock the bundles in ice water the moment they come out of the pot, then drain thoroughly on a cloth. Wet asparagus dilutes the dressing and dulls the color.
SaucesNo. 477 is Hollandaise and No. 634 a vinaigrette; both are cross-references within The Epicurean, not part of this entry. Ranhofer's insistence that they be "well seasoned" is the point — plain boiled tips carry nothing on their own.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for most of the last third of the nineteenth century, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's service manual: over a thousand pages organized so that a cook could assemble a plate from cross-referenced parts. This entry is a garnish, not a course — a "remove" was the dish that replaced the soup or fish in the formal succession of a French-service dinner, and it arrived surrounded by small decorative accompaniments like these. The carrot ring is pure restaurant thinking: it keeps identical bundles identical through the boiling water and onto the platter, where a length of twine would have to be cut away in front of the guest. Bottes is simply the French for bundles or trusses, the same word used at market for asparagus tied for sale, and tying asparagus into bunches before boiling is a much older kitchen habit — it keeps the tips out of the roughest water and lets the whole lot be lifted clear at once.