Party Asparagus with Aioli ♥ Two Classic Recipes

Today's recipes: How to cook and shock fresh asparagus to retain the bright green color and enhance the natural asparagus flavor for serving chilled. How to make aioli, the classic sauce. Great for parties, buffets, composed salads.

~recipe & photo updated 2011, republished 2013~
~more recently updated recipes~

First the asparagus. At Easter, my favorite dish at a magnificent brunch prepared by a former White House chef and recent Silver Toque winner was, um, yes, the asparagus. Aiii it was good – arrayed on huge platters, stems peeled halfway to the tips and perfectly salted. At first, I thought there might have been garlic in the cooking water. The chef sniffed at that idea so hmm, perhaps not. At home, it took three tries and three pounds of asparagus to get the salt balanced properly. Yes, I concede, dozens of spears were sacrificed to get the salt right. (2011 Update: Chef Chambrin is the source of the recipe for Raspberry Bliss, my first column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch!)

SALT It's another ingredient with (in my mind) an undeserved bad reputation. Because salt is "bad" for us, we cook rice and pasta and eggs and – heavens, vegetables – with minimal salt and even – horrors – without salt. Our bodies require salt. My solution, my rationalization? If we'd all just nix prepared and commercial food – and their high, high proportions of sodium – then it seems to me, we can let loose with salt for food cooked at home. I'm not a nutritionist so please don't violate a doctor's order. But I'd love to know – is salt a good thing or a bad thing in your world? How much salt would you use to cook a pound of asparagus?
Keep Reading ->>>