la fête d'aspereges

	The mysterious asparagus originated on the salt steppes of eastern Europe and spread from there via Asia Minor to the rest of Asia, the Mediterranean countries (there are paintings of asparagus plants in Egyptian
tombs 5,000 years ago) and later to North America. The cultivated variety developed from it is called 'upright' asparagus, though there is a recumbent form with blueish green stems bent at the foot.

Green-stemmed asparagus, the type we grow in England, is graded into three sizes. The very thin and delicate "sprue", "choice" is the middle size and "jumbo" speaks for itself. Which you prefer is purely a matter of taste although most people prefer the middle grade. Whatever it's girth asparagus, or 'grass' as it is known in the kitchen, should be smooth, bright green and firm.

At Francs, during the months of May and June - the all-too short growing season at this lattitude, we celebrate by creating a number of dishes featuring asparagus. Below are a few insider tips about how we prepare asparagus in the restaurant.

THE BASICS: To prepare, trim off any woody base with a very sharp knife. You can leave the base on if you prefer to pick the spears up with your fingers chomp away at the tip, chew down to the stringy part and leave the end, sucked clean on the side of the plate. All the trimmings can be used to make a delicious soup or a stock base both of which can be frozen.

COOKING: Theories abound about the best way to cook asparagus. In the restaurant, we steam the fully-trimmed spears then run a gentle stream of cold water over them until chilled. To reheat, they're dropped into a large pan of rapidly boiling water for a few minutes, fished out and drained on a kitchen cloth.

The spears can also be roasted and are wonderful with chopped red peppers, haloumi cheese, peeled tomatoes, garlic and olive oil, cooked until just charred and served with lots of crusty bread to soak up the juices.

HOLLANDAISE: This is Francs foolproof (almost) recipe... serves 4-ish 1/2 lb of best butter, four egg yolks, fresh tarragon, juice from two lemons, salt and pepper. Put the butter, lemon and tarragon in a saucepan and heat gently until the lemon juice starts to bubble through the butter, taking care not to burn the butter. Remove from the heat. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl and slowly add the melted butter drop by drop to start, increasing as the mixture thickens. To finish the sauce add the liquid at the bottom of the pan to reach the consistency required and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.