Recipe of the month: “Asparagus salad with iced hollandaise”

Want to cook like a 2-star chef? Not possible? You can! At least in a slightly modified form with our recipe of the month from our Ecco chef Rolf Fliegauf. His seasonal recipe “Asparagus salad with iced hollandaise, spring herbs and the beurre blanc of smoked fish” is – like the hollandaise of asparagus – an indispensable part of the Ecco menu during the asparagus season. Fliegauf adds a special touch to the dish with the classic sauce, as it is served iced. Sounds delicious and refreshing, and it is! The complexity and subtlety of Ecco dishes should not be underestimated, so we have summarized the dish for you to recreate in a few simplified steps at home. Have fun trying it out and bon appétit!

Step 1 – Marinated white asparagus

Step 2 – Iced hollandaise

Step 3 – Herb salad

Step 4 – Simplified cream of peas

Step 5 – Finger limes

Step 6 – Smoked fish beurre blanc

Schritt 7 – Tarragon oil

The crowning glory – Serving suggestion

Marinated white asparagus

Ingredients

• Peeled white asparagus
• Salt
• Sugar
• Lemon
• White balsamic vinegar
• Fresh lime
• Hazelnut oil
• Cold pressed rapeseed oil

Preparation

1. Boil the water in the pot and season with salt, sugar, and lemon.
2. Let the peeled asparagus boil for about 5 minutes (depending on the thickness). Then remove the asparagus spears and let them cool briefly in the refrigerator before portioning them.
3. Then marinate the asparagus with some fresh lemon zest and lemon juice, with white balsamic vinegar, as well as hazelnut oil and rapeseed oil, and season the whole thing with some salt and pepper.

Iced hollondaise

Ingredients iced hollandaise 

• 500g Reduction (see below for recipe)
• 60g Egg yolk
• 3g Ice stabilizer
• 20g Dextrose
• 20g Glucose powder
• 225g Brown butter

Ingredients reduction

• 10g Butter
• 210g Shallots
• 12 Pieces black peppercorns
• 2 Bay leaves
• 2,2 Liters of white wine

Preparation

1. For the reduction, you must first heat butter in a pot and lightly saute the shallots in it. Then add the remaining ingredients and cook them until 500ml of liquid remains.
2. Then boil the previously prepared reduction with dextrose, glucose powder, and the stabilizer. Leave this in the refrigerator for one night.
3. The following day, put the mixture into the Thermomix and mix in the liquid brown butter. Then season the mixture with salt, a little cayenne pepper, and lemon juice, and freeze everything in the ice cream maker.

Herb salad

Ingredients

• Various spring herbs and wild herbs
• Water for rinsing

Zubereitung

1. For the herb salad, first, rinse the various spring herbs. Our team from the Ecco Restaurant uses for this step the variety of wild herbs from the Ticino valleys such as chickweed, yarrow, deadnettle, sorrel, shield sorrel, flowers, dandelion, wild garlic flowers, and meadow chervil. You are completely free in your creation.

Simplified cream of peas

Ingredients 

• 300g Peas
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 50 ml Vegetable broth
• 1 Pinch of nutmeg
• 1 Pinch of sugar
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation

1. First, steam the peas in a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of butter and vegetable broth. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.
2. In the next step, finely puree the peas with a blender and pass them through a sieve. If necessary, season to taste with salt, pepper, and sugar.

Finger Limes

Ingredients

• Finger Limes

Preparation

1. You can cut and arrange the finger limes directly.

Smoked fish beurre blanc

Ingredients

• 10g Butter
• 40g Shallots
• 20g White leek
• 30g Fennel
• 30g Mushrooms
• 30g Celery stalks
• 50g Smoked whitefish fillet
• 50g Smoked trout
• 50g Smoked eel
• 5ml Smoke oil
• Some fennel seeds
• Some coriander seeds
• 60ml White wine
• 40ml Noilly Prat
• 15ml Champagne vinegar
• 10ml Tarragon vinegar
• 10g Bonito vinegar
• 300ml Chicken stock
• 100ml Cream
• 20g Fresh butter
• 1g Dill
• 1g Chervil
• 1g Tarragon
• Salt
• Cayenne
• Fresh lime

Zubereitung

1. First, sweat all the vegetables in the butter until colorless, deglaze with alcohol and vinegar and boil everything until the liquids are completely reduced. Then you fill this up with chicken stock and reduce it by 30%. Add cream and spices and simmer for 10 minutes, then strain.
2.  In the next step, cold smoke the whitefish fillet twice with a smoking gun and bring the sauce to a boil again. Then let the smoked whitefish fillet and the other two smoked fish cook in it. Then add smoke oil and puree everything with a hand blender before bringing it to the boil again.
3. Strain the sauce through a fine microfiber sieve, then mix in the butter and let it boil down to the desired consistency. Then add the herbs, season everything with salt, cayenne, and a little fresh lime juice, and pass the sauce through a microfiber sieve again.

Tarragon oil (ingredient of Beurre Blanc)

Ingredients

• 70ml Sunflower oil
• 40g Fresh tarragon
• 20g Fresh spinach
• Salt

Preparation

1. Heat all ingredients together in the Thermomix to 80 degrees. When the temperature is reached, mix on high speed and salt everything.
2. Then let everything cool quickly and hang out so that the turbidity settles at the bottom. You skim the oil from the top and let it pass through a fine microfiber sieve.

The crowning finale

Heat all ingredients together in the Thermomix to 80 degrees. When the temperature is reached, mix on high speed and salt everything. Then let everything cool quickly and hang out so that the turbidity settles at the bottom. You skim the oil from the top and let it pass through a fine microfiber sieve.

Things to know

White asparagus is very popular and no sooner has the season begun, than it feels for all asparagus fans as if it is also directly over again. Asparagus begins to grow when the temperature of the soil is 12 ° C warm.  Depending on the climate, in Switzerland, this is from mid to late April. The white color comes from the fact that the white asparagus grows under the ground. The end date of the asparagus harvest is always fixed, with June 24 every year on St. John’s Day. The reason for this is that the asparagus plants, which are not sown annually, need time to generate before the first frost occurs. St. John’s Day to the first frost is at least 100 days, which is enough time.

More information

The menu of our Ecco Restaurant:
Restaurant Ecco Ascona

The hotel to the story:
Hotel Giardino Ascona

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