First asparagus "with celestial shades", as Proust said. They are said to be from Argenteuil, but the factory suburbs now produce little more than "claws" from which will be born, almost everywhere and particularly in Sologne or Alsace, asparagus, always from Argenteuil for the labels.
Let us salute them, as spring messengers, table delicacies and … medicine, since according to Pliny cultivated asparagus is a very good food for the stomach at the same time than a confirmed diuretic.
Know how to cook them:you have to peel them, wash them in cold water and drain them, tie them in a boot.
Boil salted water (twenty-five grams of salt and four liters of water per kilo of asparagus). Immerse the boot held straight so that the water comes under the heads. Return to the boil and count for 12 minutes. Thus the heads will be cooked "al dente", that is to say still a little crisp and not washed out by the water. Detach the bootie, drain and serve in a warm, folded towel.
Sauces for asparagus, there are a hundred of them… which are similar and divide into two currents; vinaigrette or melted butter. I suggest this original sauce instead:
Ingredients:3 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 380g butter, 1 blood orange, 2 pinches grated orange, 1 pinch salt.
1/ Cook the asparagus as indicated above.
2/ Break 3 egg yolks and add little by little 1 spoonful of cold water, 1 of lemon juice, and 1 pinch of salt.
3/ Put the saucepan in a bain-marie and over low heat, with a wooden spoon work this mixture non-stop, which becomes frothy then takes on the consistency of a cream. Then add 30 g of half-melted butter. To mix together. And so on until you incorporate 300 g of butter into the sauce.
4/ As the sauce thickens. Add a few drops of cold water (2 tablespoons in all), then check the seasoning by adding 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, salt and freshly ground pepper.
5/ Then add the juice of a blood orange strained through cheesecloth and 2 pinches of grated orange zest.
6/ Present the asparagus in their tea towel and the sauce in a sauce boat.
