Asparagus en Croûte
A recipe from the 1982 Silver Palate Cookbook, this recipe takes a loaf of ordinary white bread and turns asparagus into elegant and impressive hors d'oeuvres.
The Silver Palate
The Silver Palate was a cutting edge food shop that opened in New York's Greenwich Village in 1977 and quickly became known for its gourmet foods and inventive recipes. It jumped onto the nation scene in 1982 when it published the Silver Palate Cookbook.
Someone gave me a new, first edition printing of the Silver Palate Cookbook just after it was first published. It was a highly stylized cookbook, very different from the run-of-the-mill cookbooks of the day. Using hand-drawn illustrations and two-color printing, informational sections in the margins would offer quotations by famous people about food or provide further information on a particular food product, such as capers, or lamb chops or black walnuts. It also offered whole meal menus combining various recipes from the book. Many of the recipes were very unique.
Two Recipes Made Their Way into Kitchen Tapestry
Written by two New Yorkers following the successful genesis of their food shop, the cookbook was something of a next step for those that hadn't mastered the Art of French Cooking from Julia Child. Full of discoveries that seem mundane by today's standards, but very avant-garde for its time, the Silver Palate Cookbook taught us about exotic condiments like balsamic vinegar and rough grain mustard, and upscale recipes like wild mushroom soup and a new thing called "pesto."
There are two recipes from this cookbook that I adopted into my repertoire, and today make with some degree of regularity. One is the Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Creamy Tarragon Dressing that I wouldn't be without when serving summertime grilled vegetables.
The other is this recipe; a deceptively simple hors d'oeuvres that always, always gets rave reviews whenever I serve it, and is a perfect cocktail party finger food: self contained, drip-less and easy to eat.
The original Silver Palate closed its door in 1993 but by then had grown its brand beyond the brick and mortar store with a whole line of prepared foods sauces and other gourmet products. In 2009, one of the original founders died and the remaining partner sold the brand, its recipes and entire product line to the Hain Celestial Group in 2000 for $20 million. Hain is a major US-based company that specializes in natural and organic food products probably best known for their Celestial Seasoning Tea line.
Asparagus en Croûte
Ingredients
- 12 slices white sandwich bread, crusts removed
- 1/2 lb Jarlsberg or Emmentaler cheese
- 1/2 cup Dijon mustard
- 12 asparagus spears
- 4 tbsp butter, melted
Instructions
- Combine half the cilantro, the mustard, honey and the toasted sesame oil and mix well.
- Set aside for at least a half-hour to give the flavors time to marry before finishing the recipe.
- Bring a skillet with about an inch of salted water to the boil and carefully place the asparagus spears into the boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove the spears to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process and set the bright green color. Drain, pat each spear dry with a paper towel and set aside.
- Using a rolling pin, flatten out the slice of bread as thin as possible. Place the bread square under a sheet of wax paper with a damp paper towel on top, and keep covered until the next step. Repeat for the remaining eleven slices of bread.
- Pre-heat oven to 450°F.
- Slice the cheese into long slices roughly the same length as the asparagus spears.
- Take out one slice of bread and spread it evenly with the Dijon mustard. Then, place the asparagus spear and the cheese slice next to one another, and roll both up into the bread slice. Place seam side down on a buttered baking sheet.
- Brush liberally with more melted butter. Bake in the upper third of the oven for 10 minutes until brown and bubbling. Allow to cool a couple of minutes before serving.
Notes
- Buy asparagus that is about the thickness of two pencils. Hold the spear by each end and bend gently in half; it will snap approximately where tenderness begins. Toss the woody part away.
- For an added bit of zest and fun, use two or three different kinds of flavored mustards, such as maple-bourbon Dijon, or honey mustard. Use a different mustard on each slice of bread, and your guests will be continually delighted with a different taste sensation with each hors d'oeuvres.
