Blood ties
Seasonality is a quirky thing. If you get the moment just right, momentary culinary combinations that bring great joy can be found. Two of my absolute favourites are Seville orange and quince, and asparagus and blood orange.
Asparagus truly represents a seasonal vegetable. Even in this modern age, science can’t make it a year-round thing. It is also a vegetable that is at its very best when it is freshly picked, so eating asparagus out of season, after it has been flown halfway around the world, is quite frankly a waste of time and resources.
As a gardener, I find it an incredible vegetable to grow, where patience is rewarded with longevity. Once planted, it is best not to pick your asparagus for the first three years. This allows the “crown” to strengthen for its long life ahead. On the fourth year, start picking the spears and that “crown” will keep getting bigger and provide you with a yearly crop for at least the next 20 years.
Early spring also coincides with the last of the blood oranges. Blood oranges appear later in the winter citrus season, and hang on right up until the asparagus arrives. By a quirk of nature, the two are a timely and wonderful combination.
Hollandaise is a member of the classic French sauce brigade. It’s a little timeconsuming – a bit of a workout while whisking the butter in – but the result is charming. As a “mother” sauce, it has at least 13 children, known as the derivatives. Many have names as charming as the results: sauce bavaroise, sauce divine and the sexiest of the family, sauce noisette, a lush sauce made with browned butter. But here, we are making sauce maltaise, a hollandaise made with blood oranges.
It is often said that sauce maltaise should be paired only with asparagus, either white or green. I have added here a little goat fromage frais (goat’s cheese), another classic friend of asparagus, as I find the slight acidity of the cheese perfectly complements the richness and oblique sweetness of the sauce.
And if you’re curious about the other quirk of seasonality, next winter the quinces I squirrel away at the end of autumn will be added to Seville orange marmalade to create another true wonder.