Jockey-Club Salad

Salade Jockey-Club (asparagus-tip and raw-truffle salad) teaches restraint. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is this: too much mayonnaise and the truffle disappears. The sauce should make the asparagus heads and raw truffle cohere, nothing more. You must still see every green tip and every dark julienne, each carrying its own seasoning beneath the faint gloss of the emulsion.

The original formula assumed a garde-manger station with blanched asparagus, scrubbed truffles, and sauce mayonnaise, the cold yolk-and-oil emulsion, already waiting on ice. At home, blanch one small measure, whisk one yolk, and weigh the two principal ingredients equally after trimming. The ready station was brigade scaffolding and can go. The equal proportion, separate advance seasoning, raw truffle, and scant last-minute binding are the dish itself and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Give the asparagus and truffle thirty minutes in separate bowls so each absorbs its seasoning without surrendering its character. The decisive step comes at the end: add the mayonnaise one spoonful at a time and stop while the salad still looks like asparagus and truffle, not sauce.