You want an Easter Sunday breakfast to be a little bit fancy, but not too fancy. Why not give asparagus dippers a go and replace the usual hen's egg with the bigger duck egg. Bright green, tender asparagus replaces the traditional toast soldiers we're all used to, and it's an opportunity to celebrate the, oh so brief, UK asparagus season.
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Yields:
6
Prep Time:
15 mins
Cook Time:
6 mins
Total Time:
21 mins
Cal/Serv:
174
Ingredients
600
asparagus spears (not the fine variety)
6
duck eggs
Extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle
Sourdough bread, optional
You'll also need string
Directions
Step 1
Holding both ends of an asparagus spear in your hands, bend gently until it snaps. Discard woody end (or keep to make soups or stocks). Trim all remaining spears to this length. Use a vegetable peeler to shave any knobbly or woody bits below the tip of each spear.
Step 2
Divide the asparagus equally into six piles, then tie each neatly into a bundle with string.
Step 3
Bring two medium pans of water to the boil. Add eggs to one pan and simmer for exactly 5½min. Add asparagus bundles to the other pan and cook for 1min until just tender. Drain the asparagus and leave to steam-dry in the colander for 3min. Drain the eggs.
Step 4
Put one asparagus bundle on each plate, drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Serve with the eggs, plus a slice of sourdough bread, if you like.
Duck eggs or hen's eggs?
We use duck eggs here, which are richer in flavour and larger than regular hen's egg. If you prefer hen's eggs though, then you can of course substitute them in, just boil them for 4min rather than 51/2min.
Be prepared
Prepare the asparagus to end of step 2 up to 2hr ahead. Chill the bundles. Complete recipe to serve.
When is asparagus season?
Asparagus season is short and sweet in the UK, running from mid April through to early June.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
