April 23rd is St George’s Day. St George being the patron saint of England. Unfortunately, it is not celebrated with the same vigor that St Patrick’s Day is.  Many English people barely remember what date St George’s Day falls on, nevertheless, I have reason to celebrate because April 23rd is the official start of the English Asparagus season.

April 23rd is also the anniversary of this blog which I launched in 2015 making this the ninth year!   To date the blog has received 14,316,807 hits which is amazing, thank you so much 🙂

So today’s recipe is of course local Asparagus, sat on a bed of salad leaves topped with a toasted English muffin, followed by Asparagus wrapped in smoked bacon, then a poached free range egg and finally Choron sauce.

Ingredients for 2

Sauce Choron

130 grams unsalted butter melted

3 large egg yolks

2 TBsp White wine

1 Tbsp White wine vinegar

3 grams Tarragon finely chopped

4 halves of Sundried Tomatoes chopped

Asparagus

3-4 Asparagus spears per person depending on size

4 rashers Smoked streaky bacon

1 Tbsp Olive oil

Cocktail sticks

1 English muffin

Mixed Salad leaves

2 Large Eggs

 

1. Cut at least 2 inches off the bottom of the asparagus spears and keep for soup.
2. Blanch the Asparagus in boiling salted water for 60 seconds, and then chill down fast with cold water and drain well.
3. Wrap each Asparagus spear with half a rasher of bacon wrapping it as tightly as possible and pinning it in place with a half a cocktail stick. Then refrigerate until later.
4. Now make the Choron sauce – Whisk the egg yolks with the white wine and vinegar over hot water (just less than a simmer), until very thick. You can either whisk by hand or use an electric hand mixer. This will take at least 6 minutes for the mixture to thicken. Make sure you are touching the bottom of the mixing bowl to prevent the eggs from scrambling.
5. Once the mixture is very thick, slowly start whisking in the melted butter, a little at a time until it is all incorporated. Stir in the chopped tarragon and sundried tomatoes.
6. Keep the Choron sauce warm over warm water but remove the saucepan from stove to avoid it getting over cooked. Cling wrap the sauce until needed.
7. Heat a non-stick frying-pan to a medium temperature, add 1 Tbsp olive oil then begin to cook the asparagus spears wrapped in bacon. Keep turning the Asparagus so it does not burn and cook until the bacon is brown. Remove from the pan and keep the Asparagus warm.
8. Cut the muffin in half and toast until lightly brown.
9. Poach the eggs in salted simmering water that has 1 Tbsp vinegar in it.
10. Remove the pan from the heat.
11. Then place both halves of the toasted muffin into the bacon fat in the frying pan to absorb the flavour and warm up.

To Serve
Place a small handful of mixed leaves onto a plate then top with a toasted muffin.
Then add the bacon wrapped asparagus, next the poached egg. Then finally spoon some of the Choron sauce over the poached egg.

Chef’s Notes
Classically speaking Choron sauce is Béarnaise with the addition of tomato paste.
Béarnaise is made by reducing down white wine, white wine vinegar, tarragon, shallots and chervil, then adding the almost dry reduction to the Hollandaise.

I wanted to create a more modern version so  I left out the step to create a reduction, instead I just added finely diced tarragon leaves and used sundried tomatoes instead of tomato puree to create a wonderful flavour.   Choron sauce will turn redder as the sundried tomatoes get absorbed into the Hollandaise.

Asparagus with Smoked Bacon & Sauce Choron ©Kevin Ashton 2024