Asparagus w/ Sauce Gribiche

I hope you like asparagus, because for the next few weeks, you will be seeing a lot of asparagus recipes here.

T'is the season.

I only buy them when they are in season, NOW.

Since my garden spears are few, I buy them at the farmer's market so I can eat them weekly without totally beheading my plants.

What is this gribiche sauce that I speak of?

Gribiche is a French sauce for vegetables. It is a cold sauce, made by emulsifying hard boiled eggs w/ mustard and oil. It becomes thick like a homemade mayonnaise and I adore it.

It's tangy from the cornichons and capers and goes so well with broccoli, asparagus and potatoes!

Every good Frenchman has a recipe for gribiche (Lebovitz has his), and I love my friend Stephan's recipe.
Tried and true. I make it every spring.

He likes to be fancy and use it on white asparagus, which I love, but it never looks "fresh" at the market. It looks like it sat on a plane from wherever it is coming from and looks sad, dry and tired, so I pass it up (and at $5.99 lb. it should look happy).

This is a great and easy dish for your Mother's Day brunch, or in my case, a Tuesday lunch!

Asparagus w/ Sauce Gribiche (adapted from Zen Can Cook):

16 thick white or green asparagus
1 large egg, hardboiled for 10 minutes
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 small shallot, finely chopped
3 or 4 cornichons (little French gherkins), coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon capers, drained and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup mixed fresh herbs (parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon), chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Trim the woodsy ends off the asparagus spears (the tough bottoms), by snapping them off.
I like to peel the bottom of my spears w/ a vegetable peeler for a prettier effect.

Blanch the asparagus for 2-4 minutes (depending on their size), you want them to be firm, not limp and mushy.

Immediately plunge them into an ice bath to stop the cooking and set the pretty green color.

Now make the vinaigrette/sauce.

Add all the ingredients into a bowl and grate the hard boiled egg into the mix.
Slowly whisk in the oil and herbs, and season w/ a pinch of sea salt & black pepper.

Now you are ready to spoon this beautiful egg sauce over your asparagus or any other vegetable of your choice, or you can eat it with a spoon out of the bowl, it is that good!