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Asparagus, Vinaigrette
Carefully open two cans fine asparagus. Take from cans and carefully drop in boiling water two minutes. Remove with a skimmer, lay on a cloth and let get cold. Then place on a cold dish with a folded napkin, and send to table with six tablespoons dressing in a saucepan separately.
This is a service recipe more than a cooking one: the asparagus arrives already cooked in the can, and everything here is about restoring its texture and temperature before it goes to the table.
- The hinge: two minutes, no moreCanned asparagus is fully cooked and fragile. The brief dip in boiling water seems intended to wash off the canning liquid and warm the spears through; leave them longer than the stated two minutes and they collapse into threads.
- If you use fresh insteadFresh asparagus needs 3-5 minutes in well-salted boiling water for medium spears, then an immediate transfer to ice water. The original's method assumes the pre-cooked canned product and will badly undercook raw spears.
- "Two cans fine asparagus"Tin sizes for graded whole spears varied, so the total quantity is guesswork; buy enough for a first course for the number you are feeding, remembering the drained weight is well under the tin weight.
- Lay on a clothThis is not a quaint flourish. Wet asparagus dilutes the vinaigrette and pools on the plate. A clean towel or several layers of paper does the same job; let the spears cool in a single layer, not heaped.
- The folded napkinThe spears were laid on a folded linen napkin on the serving dish, most likely to absorb the last of the water. Any absorbent cloth works, or skip it and drain the spears thoroughly.
- "Dressing in a saucepan"Most likely this simply means the sauce goes to table separately in its own small vessel rather than being heated, though the wording is ambiguous. Use a sauce boat or small pitcher; the dressing is best at room temperature so the oil is not cloudy.
- The dressing itselfThe recipe assumes a vinaigrette given elsewhere and does not describe it. A standard oil-and-vinegar dressing with salt and pepper will do; if six tablespoons looks thin for your number of diners, make more.
Asparagus vinaigrette belongs to the French cold-entree tradition, where a boiled vegetable served cool with an oil-and-vinegar sauce opened the meal, and the sauce came to table apart so each diner dressed their own spears. What dates this version is the can. Commercial canning of asparagus expanded in the United States around the turn of the century, and tinned white and green spears were available in households that would only have seen fresh asparagus for a few weeks in spring. A cookbook of this kind could therefore present a Parisian first course as something requiring no more than a can opener, a pot of water and a folded napkin.