A Springtime Recipe: Asparagus with Herb Sauce - Lunch and brunch

Serves 4

If there are fewer than four people, simply cook fewer potatoes and eggs, but make the complete green sauce recipe. It can be kept for several days, and is delicious as a dip for raw vegetables, to accompany grilled meats, as a sandwich spread, etc. Use your imagination for more ways to enjoy it!

Recipe by Julie Aubé, passionate and gourmet Nutritionist!

A typical recipe from Frankfurt, Germany, grüne sosse (green sauce) is traditionally prepared with seven herbs. It is served, as I suggest here, with hard-boiled eggs and potatoes. Its colours, freshness and lightness make it a perfect spring meal! My version is simplified, in that it uses four herbs and ingredients you can find at a market nearby. Add asparagus and you get a delicious blend of flavours with the eggs and the herbs. You can vary the herbs you use as the season changes, and according to what you have on hand.

Ingredients

Asparagus with Herb Sauce:

10 eggs
8 to 12 small potatoes, peeled (2 or 3 per person, according to size)
500 mL (2 cups) watercress, coarsely chopped
250 mL (1 cup) Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
250 mL (1 cup) sorrel, coarsely chopped
250 mL (1 cup) chives, coarsely chopped
1 large French shallot, peeled and chopped
375 mL (1 ½ cup) plain yogurt
30 mL (2 tbsp.) cider vinegar
20 mL (4 tsp.) hot mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
30 mL (2 tbsp.) sunflower oil
Large bunch of Québec asparagus

Preparation

Asparagus with Herb Sauce:

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Drop the eggs and potatoes into the boiling water. After 11 or 12 minutes, remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and put them in a large bowl of cold water to stop them from cooking further. Add salt to the boiling water and continue cooking the potatoes for 5 to 10 minutes longer, until they are cooked through, but not soft.
Meanwhile, rinse, dry, and coarsely chop the herbs (watercress, parsley, sorrel, chives).
Measure the quantities by gently pressing the herbs into the measuring cup.
Place the herbs in a food processer, add the chopped shallots, yogurt, cider vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper.
Peel the eggs. Cut two eggs in half and add their yolks to the herb mixture.
Mix the sauce by pulsing and scraping the sides with a spatula, until the sauce is creamy. Set aside in a large bowl.
Finely chop the whites of the two yolkless eggs. Add the chopped egg whites to the herbs and mix. Taste to adjust the seasoning. Set aside in the fridge.
In a frying pan, heat 15 mL (1 tbsp.) sunflower oil at medium heat and sauté the potatoes until they are golden-brown. Remove them from the pan and set aside.
In the same frying pan, heat the rest of the oil and sauté the asparagus for 4 to 5 minutes, until they are golden-brown, but still firm.
Pour equal portions of the green sauce into four deep plates (or pasta bowls).
On one side, place the potatoes, and on the other side, four egg halves, and in the centre, a quarter of the asparagus.

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