An Egg Poached in Asparagus Velouté, with parmesan and truffle oil.

Asparagus season in upon us, and it's traditional around these parts to go out and buy big bunches of the stuff and throw them into every dish imaginable, regardless of whether or not they go together. 

One pairing that does definitely go together is asparagus and egg. A nice poached egg with a few spears of the green stuff can be one of those simple pleasures that remind you of an easier life. One without the need for expensive ingredients, scientific analysis, complicated high tech cooking techniques and fancy pants plating.

But isn't it all a bit boring ?

...I think maybe it is.

Looking back on my egg poaching blog and the ones yet to come ( I have written some of them but I keep getting distracted by shiny things and posting those instead) there was a definite need to try poaching eggs in a thicker liquid than water. So being the sort to do so I put the two projects together and here we are.

The Velouté

The basic idea of making any veloute is simply to break down the vegetable in a simmering liquid, blitz it in a mixer and then pass it though a sieve. That's it...simple.

So first of all I threw some finely chopped onion and the roughly chopped asparagus into a pan with a little butter and left until both started to soften. As soon as the asparagus was softening I threw in some chicken stock (vegetarians, veg stock will do nicely), some water and some milk. Enough stock to cover the asparagus and a little of the other two to top the mixture up. The more creamy you want your end product the more milk you add. You could even add cream as well.

Leave this on a heavy simmer until you can see the asparagus is soft enough to fall apart without much help. At this stage take it off the heat.

Spoon your asparagus into a blender and top up with the liquid (Don't over fill your blender. Do this in stages. The mixture is hot and very dangerous, so be careful). Blitz until smooth then pass though sieve into a clean pan.

Heat this mixture and season well to taste.

The Egg

Once you are happy with the veloute have your eggs ready to poach.

Bring your veloute to the boil then turn off the heat and drop your egg/eggs into the centre (if doing more than one make sure you spread them out). The mixture should be thick enough to stop it from spreading and hot enough to quickly start coagulation.

Wait for 2-3 mins or until the egg (remove with a slotted spoon to check) looks almost cooked. The egg will cook for longer in the bowl so we don't want to over do it.

Remove the egg and lay it in the bowl. Then pour over the veloute though another sieve (incase you have any thin pieces of egg).

The Rest

I added some thin strips of Parmesan, some crispy croutons and a few drops of white truffle oil (the last addition I highly recommend.)

and voila

 

Simply delicious. Do try.

Comments

[s. stockwell]

This is just so artful! love the idea and we will do this soon. Thanks from Santa Barbara, best, s

[A Girl Has To Eat]

What a great combination!

[der reisebericht]

the velouté was awesome,... br from germany