Gastroville

The most famous asparagus producer not only in Vaucluse but also in all of France is perhaps Robert Blanc in Villelaure outside Pertuis a 50 kilometres north of Aix-en-Provence. As Louisa Chu of Movable-Feast, working at les Ambassadeurs, points out, Blanc sells his asparagus under women names such as Brigitte and Danielle. There is a bit more to the names though. They are named after celebrities. Brigitte is voluptuous as Brigitte Bardot, Danielle is grande like Danielle Darrieux and Mireille is small like Mireille Mathieu. Marketing gimmickry? Maybe, but they are exceptionally good and prices are accordingly.

The green Vaucluse asparagus should normally be rather big and they actually taste marvellous even raw sliced in very thin slices. Make a risotto flavoured with a mild olive oil infused with fresh garlic and shave some of this exceptional asparagus thinly over it. Sprinkle a bit of sea salt on top and drizzle a little olive oil. It is such a treat that one almost stops longing for the white truffle season.

The large Vaucluse asparagus has very different taste nuances and textures when raw, when semi-cooked and when cooked. Combining them in intelligent ways enhances the appearance of this great produce. Ducasse often uses different textural combinations in his asparagus dishes.

The recipe below is a simple suggestion to marry three different textural and taste combinations; raw, semi-cooked and cooked asparagus. And yes, morels are a great accompaniment to it. If you want another textural component of asparagus, you can surely mix some cooked asparagus with a little bouillon into a velouté-like sauce.

It is very simple to do this recipe.

What you need for 2 people:
5 large green Vaucluse asparagus or their equivalents
10 fresh morels of good quality
2 tbl spoons veal jus
Olive oil
Butter

Cut 4 asparagus in two pieces. Peel the bottom of the part with the tip. Slice the parts without the tips of two asparagus into thin juliennes.

Cook the tips in butter with a little sea salt like our friend Sam Grimes suggested, rolling the asparagus constantly in the pan to cook it through. Remember to use low heat to avoid burning the asparagus. If you want you can surely as Grimes suggested finish with a little freshly grated parmigiano

Sear the morels in some butter on high heat constantly stirring the morels. Season with salt from the start. Deglaze with the veal jus. When reading this you may notice that I do not advice you to use shallots or onions like most other recipes call for even recipes from famous chefs. You may wonder if I forgot something. No certainly not. If you try exceptional morels cooked on very high heat in butter at a temperature just below that when the butter starts burning, and compare it with exceptional morels cooked with shallots or any other such popular addition, you will notice that the morels cooked without shallots actually taste morels whereas the morels cooked with shallots have a somewhat sharp edge of shallots to them that masks the true taste of morels. The practice of adding shallots to mushrooms is something that I have never understood. It does not enhance the taste of the mushroom. It only compromises it. Even worse is the fortunately not widely used practice of cooking ceps with shallots. That should be a criminal offence. Do not use dried morels. If you cannot find fresh morels omit them altogether. Dried morels have a sharp metallic acid and smoky taste derived from the drying process and it does not even remotely resemble the fresh ones. Unfortunately, many top restaurants use mixed dried morels and morels jus from dried morels to enhance the taste of fresh morels, but the result is often vulgar.

Lastly, sear the asparagus juliennes in a little olive oil and wrap them in a thinly lengthwise slice from the remaining asparagus.

Plate the components for example as shown on the picture below.

/MJ