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Asparagus Tips in Bread Boxes
Cut stale dry bread in four-inch cubes. From one side cut out a square, leaving half an inch margin on each side; then carefully scoop out the center. Have ready a kettle partly filled with smoking hot fat. Dip the prepared boxes into slightly beaten egg, drop quickly into the fat and turn until uniformly colored a light golden brown. Drain on unglazed paper and set aside. Place in the oven to heat about fourteen minutes before they are to be served. Cut the tips from one or more bunches of asparagus, rinse thoroughly and boil in salted water until tender-about ten minutes. To one cupful of tips allow an equal amount of thick cream sauce, using two tablespoonfuls of flour and one tablespoonful of butter to a cupful of milk. Season well, add the tips to the prepared sauce, let stand for a moment at the side of the fire; then fill the boxes.
A fried bread case filled with creamed asparagus — the sort of composed vegetable garnish that dressed up a game course. Most of it holds up; the timings are where it needs attention.
- Fat temperature"Smoking hot fat" is imprecise and, taken literally, past the point where most oils break down. Deep-fry the cases at 365–375F; at that heat they colour in under a minute and absorb little fat.
- The bread matters mostStale, close-crumbed bread is not a suggestion. Fresh or airy sandwich bread collapses and soaks up oil. Cut the cubes a day ahead and let them dry uncovered.
- The egg dipA thin coat of beaten egg sets into a seal and keeps the crumb from drinking fat. Brush or dip quickly — a saturated cube will fry unevenly.
- ReheatingThe instruction is a timing, not a temperature: the cases go into the oven about fourteen minutes before they are to be served, and no oven heat is given. They can be fried hours ahead and heated through just before serving.
- Asparagus timingTen minutes will give you the olive-drab, limp asparagus of the period. Tips alone need 2–4 minutes in salted boiling water; drain and use at once, or refresh in cold water if holding them.
- The sauceTwo tablespoons flour to one of butter and a cup of milk is flour-heavy by modern practice, which pairs them equally. It will thicken but can taste pasty — cook the roux a full two minutes before the milk goes in, or use two tablespoons of each.
- "At the side of the fire"The cool edge of a coal range: the lowest heat that keeps the sauce warm without boiling. A burner on its lowest setting, or a bowl over warm water.
Fried bread cases go by many names in turn-of-the-century American cookery — croustades, bread boxes, timbale cases — and they solved a practical problem: how to serve a soft, saucy filling as an individual portion at a formal table. Asparagus in cream was a spring luxury, and a pair of gilded bread boxes flanking a roast bird or a saddle of venison did the work of both vegetable and garnish. Hollowed loaves filled with ragouts are an older European habit, though the line of descent to these cases is not documented; the form had the incidental virtue of using up stale bread while looking like extravagance.