Engadiner Spargel
As reported on Monday by Switzerland’s organization of vegetable producers (Verband Schweizer Gemüseproduzenten VSGP / L'Union maraîchère suisse), despite a slow start due to cold weather, it’s now time for Switzerland’s favourite vegetable season:
Asparagus season!
It’s that magical time when the vegetable aisles are filled with cartons of Thomy’s Hollandaise sauce and restaurants devote entire one-page special menus to the beloved green spears.
I’m particularly excited about asparagus this year because of this book:
(Truly the best German cookbook pun I have ever seen.)
I love Peter Bührer’s wonderful 1986 cookbook Schweizer Spezialitäten (a great collection of traditional dishes from all cantons that he wrote when he was just 21), and have been looking for his asparagus book in Brockis (second hand shops) for ages. I finally found it last month, just in time for Spargel season.
It was his first book and was published in 1985, when he was just twenty and finishing his apprenticeship. It contains a wealth of information about asparagus, as well as numerous recipes, from Bührer himself and also from top chefs at the time. There are recipes from the legendary Rosa Tschudi, Anton Mosimann of Dorchester fame, head chef at the White House Henry Haller, Seppi Renggli from the Four Seasons in New York, and renowned chef and educator Agnes Amberg.
(Peter Bührer seems like a super interesting guy—here’s a great asparagus-related article about him, and here’s his personal website).
Lots of the top chef recipes are filled with expensive ingredients like caviar, scampi and scallops, so I thought I’d stick with this simple dish that pairs your spears with Bündner Rohschinken, beautiful cured ham from Graubünden, and a tangy Bérnaise sauce. Bührer’s book has a recipe for a whisked Bérnaise, but I’ve simplified it here by using an immersion blender.
Serve with some crusty bread or new potatoes.
1-1½ kg asparagus
100 g Bündner Rohschinken
For the Bérnaise sauce:
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp cold water
1 tbsp vinegar
100 g butter
salt
lemon juice
tarragon, chopped
cayenne pepper or hot sauce, to taste
Trim, then cook or steam the asparagus to your liking.
For the sauce:
In a tall, narrow measuring cup add the yolk, water, and vinegar.
Melt the butter.
Begin whizzing the yolk mixture with an immersion blender. Slowly pour the warm butter into the mixture in a steady stream. Keep blending and slowly adding the butter. Be sure not to add too much at one time or the mixture won’t emulsify. Eventually the mixture will thicken up (this takes a little while, just keep blending until all the butter is added).
Add the salt, lemon juice, tarragon and hot sauce to taste.
Serve the asparagus with the cured ham and sauce.
Add the butter to the egg very slowly. If you add it too fast, it won’t emulsify.
Tarragon makes this sauce Bérnaise, leave it out and you have Hollandaise (but do make your own if you can).
