Asparagus with ham, cooked egg, butter and parsley potatoes are the traditional Dutch way of serving white asparagus.
Ingredients
500g (18oz) asparagus
3 eggs, cooked and quartered
100g (3.5oz) cooked ham, in slices
100g (3.5oz) butter, molten
400g (14oz) potatoes
few sprigs of parsley
salt
Asparagus soup
1 vegetable stock cube
1 tbsp corn starch
125ml (1/2 cup) milk or cream
pepper
chopped parsley
Instructions
Cover asparagus with water, leave them to soak (this will make it more easy to peel them).
Peel the potatoes, put in pan, cover with water, add pinch of salt.
Peel the asparagus generously and cut or snap of the woody ends.
Put the asparagus in a big pan, cover with water.
Prepare the asparagus soup.
While eating the soup, cook the potatoes (20 mins) and asparagus (10-15 mins).
Drain the asparagus well.
Toss the potatoes with half of the butter, and the parsley.
Drizzle the rest of the butter over the asparagus.
Serve the asparagus and parsley potatoes with the cooked egg and ham.
Asparagus soup
Cover peels and cut-offs generously with water.
Bring to the boil and cook for 1 hour.
Sieve, press all of the liquid from the peels.
Add stock cube.
Make a pasta from the corn starch and milk, add to the soup to thicken.
Season to taste with salt, pepper and parsley.
Serve hot.
Notes
If you don't want to use the asparagus soup as starter, you can use the cooking liquid of the asparagus instead of water to boil the peels and cut-offs in after having diner. Sieve the liquid, store it in the fridge and finish it off the next day.
The cooked eggs can be chopped finely instead of quartered.
Recipe by Honest Cooking at https://honestcooking.com/white-asparagus-ham-egg-potatoes/