Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains
Spargel mit Schinken (white asparagus with ham and light hollandaise)
What Germany waits all year for: tender white asparagus, new potatoes and slices of ham under a warm lemony sauce. The hollandaise keeps plenty of real butter for its flavour, with quark taking the place of the rest.
- Time
- 55 min (25 prep + 30 cook)
- Servings
- 4
- Per serving
- 532 kcal
- Protein
- 25 g
Ingredients
To serve
- 1 3/4 lb gold potatoes, small new potatoes, scrubbed
- 3 1/2 lb white asparagus (2 2/3 lb peeled) asparagus, peeled from just below the tip, woody ends cut off
- 1 tsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
Light hollandaise
- 3 raw egg yolks, from pasteurised eggs
- 2 tbsp white wine, dry
- 1/3 cup quark, low-fat (Magerquark)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 cup butter, melted, warm but not hot
- 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
To serve
- 9 oz deli ham, thinly sliced cooked ham, or half raw ham (Schwarzwälder)
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
Steps
- Boil the potatoes in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender, and drain. Keep them warm in the pot with the lid on.
- Meanwhile bring a wide pan of water to the boil with the sugar and salt. Add the asparagus and simmer gently for 12 to 15 minutes, until a spear bends slightly when you lift it from the middle and a knife slides in easily. Thin spears need less. Lift out and drain on a clean towel.
- While the asparagus simmers, whisk the quark smooth, then whisk in the egg yolks, wine, lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of water. Keep the water barely simmering and whisk constantly for 4 to 6 minutes, until the sauce thickens like custard and reaches 160°F on a thermometer.
- Take the bowl off the heat and whisk in the butter, warm but not hot, in a thin stream, then the mustard and white pepper. Taste and add a drop more lemon if it needs lifting.
- Lay the asparagus and ham on warm plates with the potatoes, spoon over the hollandaise, scatter with parsley and serve at once. Hollandaise does not keep or reheat, so make it last.
Good to know
Can I use green asparagus?
Yes. It needs no peeling except at the woody ends and is done in about 6 to 8 minutes. White is the German spring ritual, but the sauce is just as good on green.
What if I want the classic butter hollandaise?
Leave out the quark, use 180 g of butter whisked in slowly and you have the classic, at about 50 instead of 59.
My sauce has split. Can I save it?
Often, yes. Whisk a tablespoon of warm water into a clean bowl with a little of the sauce, then whisk in the rest a spoonful at a time. Keep the heat low: a sauce with quark and yolk curdles if it boils.
Per
- Calories
- 86
- Protein
- (19%)
- 4 g
- Fat
- (50%)
- 5 g
- Carbohydrates
- (32%)
- 8 g
- of which sugar
- 1 g
- Fiber
- 2 g
- Sodium
- 217 mg
About 70% of the alcohol remains after cooking; the label counts only that.
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 2128 kcal goes into the pot and 2553 g of ingredients comes out as about 2482 g of food: 86 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.