Home › Game › Escalloped Asparagus
Escalloped Asparagus
Boil asparagus until tender, then drain and place a layer in a baking dish which you have buttered and sprinkled with bread crumbs; sprinkle the asparagus with chopped hard boiled eggs, pepper, salt and grated cheese and continue in this way until the pan is full, having the top layer of asparagus. Make a thin white sauce of a tablespoonful of butter, tablespoonful of flour and a cupful of milk, and pour this over the other ingredients, allowing it to soak through the mixture. Mix a little grated cheese with fine bread crumbs and sprinkle over the top. Place in the oven and bake a light brown.
A straightforward gratin that needs only two decisions the original leaves open: how long to boil the asparagus, and how hot the oven runs.
- Do not boil it until "tender"Period recipes commonly boiled asparagus for twenty minutes or more, and spears cooked that far will collapse in the baking dish. Boil trimmed spears 2-3 minutes until barely yielding, then drain well; they finish in the oven.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes, until the crumb topping is light brown and the sauce bubbles at the edge.
- Drain thoroughlyWet asparagus will thin the white sauce into a puddle. Spread the drained spears on a towel for a few minutes before layering.
- The white sauceA tablespoon each of butter and flour to a cup of milk is a thin béchamel by design, so it can soak down through the layers. Cook the roux a minute before adding the milk, and season it; the recipe salts the layers but not the sauce.
- CheeseAny firm grating cheese works; a dry cheddar-type cheese is the likeliest reading of "grated cheese" in a household cookbook of this period. Figure about 3/4 cup total across the layers and topping.
- ProportionsFor a 1 1/2-quart dish: about 2 lb asparagus, 3 hard-boiled eggs, and the single cup of sauce as written. Serves four as a side, three as a supper dish.
- Assembly notePour the sauce slowly and let it settle before adding the crumb-and-cheese topping, or the topping sinks and never browns.
"Escalloped" (or scalloped) in American cookbooks of this era meant almost any dish layered with crumbs and a sauce and baked in a shallow dish; the word is traditionally traced to the shell-shaped vessel such dishes were once cooked in, though that derivation is not certain. Asparagus was a short-season luxury before refrigerated rail freight matured, and recipes like this one exist partly to stretch a modest bundle with eggs, milk and cheese into something that could hold the centre of a light supper.