asparagus and egg salad with walnuts and mint

April 03, 2018

I found my new favorite spring lunch salad while I was hiding from a pot of brisket, which is the kind of thing that happens three days after Passover. Day one (which is actually day two or three after you’ve cooked the brisket, because you know I’d never lead you astray, right?) is lovely: my goodness, why don’t we eat long-cooked, saucy slabs of beef more often? Day two isn’t so bad either, albeit a touch less enthusiastic: yay, brisket. Day three is: my god this isn’t natural, nobody should eat this much brisket, what am I going to do? I cannot waste food. It’s too long into the brisket’s lifespan to freeze it now. And my thoughts turned to the vibrant green asparagus stalks we’d had with it, and that brisket was instantly relegated to a side dish.

I wasn’t even a little bit surprised that I found inspiration for asparagus in the Six Seasons cookbook. Have you bought it yet? I know this is awfully bossy of me, but I think you should. I think that if you, like me, delight in inventive but not overly complicated vegetable preparations (225 of them, even), things you hadn’t thought of but that you’ll immediately tuck into your repertoire, you’re going to love this book as much as I do. I confess I’ve had it for almost a year. In that year, I’ve been almost overwhelmed with how much I’ve wanted to cook from it — a favorite so far has been the comfortable cabbage and farro soup with parmesan and lemon — almost to the point of paralysis, which is as ridiculous of a first-world problem as having too much brisket to eat, but here we are and at least one impasse helped resolve another.

So let’s talk about this dish: It’s been so long since we did an asparagus salad, and only one has been raw, a shame because thinly sliced asparagus is almost sweet and not dry or woodsy at all. Previously, I’ve just ribboned it with a peeler. This is easier, more satisfyingly crisp, and less fragile too. The original recipe uses breadcrumbs to enhance the crunch; I skipped them because I pictured this on toast or crackers but missed them so little, I don’t think I’d add them back in even if eating it straight from a bowl, as I am this minute.

I added the eggs. I call these medium-cooked eggs; feel free to use fully hard-boiled ones if that’s what you’ve gotten idling in your fridge, but I find these more interesting. They’re not runny, but they’re not fully set or opaque in the center either. They amount tender oases in a crunchy salad; all of the flavorful bits stick to them (vs. fully hard-boiled eggs, whose insides crumble and stick to everything else).

I was suspicious of the lemon zest and mint and they’re my two favorite parts. Don’t skip them at all.

Finally, as might already be clear, I didn’t wait until asparagus season in New York to try this, as McFadden would have wanted us to. I have given up, just given up. It snowed in April, and might again before the week is out. When the asparagus shows up at the market, I’ll make it again and realize everything this salad is missing, but right now, when the grocery store is the greenest place I know, I couldn’t imagine another more perfect use of what’s there.