Name: Asparagus Salad
Ingredients: 1 pound tender asparagus; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; dressing of your choice

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

1 pound tender asparagus
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
dressing of your choice

Directions

Prepare and cook

Cut the asparagus into 1‑inch pieces and soak in cold water.
Drain and cook in boiling salted water for 3‑5 minutes.
Drain and let the asparagus cool.

Dress and rest

Add the dressing, mix well, and let it stand for 1 hour before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Asparagus: Forms the body of the salad, giving a tender, crisp-cooked texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the asparagus for 3‑5 minutes. Asparagus cooks quickly. Boiling it too long softens the cell walls and turns it mushy and dull green, while a short boil keeps it tender with a bright colour. Draining and cooling it promptly stops further cooking.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.