Asparagus with Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

• Asparagus, and seakale, if procurable, should be picked
• with a good allowance of salt
• and a little sugar
• a pat of fresh butter

Method

1. 1

   Wash and tie asparagus in bundles, trim the stalks, and boil in salted water with sugar.

2. 2

   Drain and serve hot with Dutch sauce or melted butter.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Culinary jottings (1885) by A. R. Kenney-Herbert, page 91. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Asparagus, and seakale, if procui^ble, should be picked carefiillj, washed, and tied up in little bundles with all the heads level : then, with a very sharp knife, the stalks should also be cut level. Put the trimmed bundles into fast boiling water with a good allowance of salt and a little sugar. They should then be carefully di'ained, and served an nafnrel, with " Diitcli sauce," or a plain dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. The following wrinkle is given by the author of Food and Feeding : — " Asparagus of the stouter sort, always when of the giant Tariety, should be cut of exactly equal lengths, and boiled standing ends (the green tips) upwards, in a deep sauce-pan. Nearly two inches of the heads should be out of the water — the steam sufficing to cook them, as they form the ten- derest part of the plant ; while the hard stalky part is rendered soft and succulent by the longer boiling which this plan permits. A period of thirty or forty minutes on the plan i^commended will render fully a third more of the stalk delicious, while the head will be properly cooked in the steam alone." There is a custom followed by ignorant English, as well as by native cooks, of placing a slice of toasted bread in the dish destined to receive a bundle of asparagus, seakale, &,c., over which they finally pour a plentiful bath of taste- less flour and water called " w^hite sauce." The toast is utterly unnecessary, and the sauce — butter plainly melted VEGETABLES— CONCLUDED. 163 — ought invariably to be handed round, piping hot, in a boat. A few drops of tarragon vinegar should be stirred into the " Dutch sauce," and the vegetable having been care- fully di^ained should be laid in a very hot dish, with a pat of fresh butter

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.