Cardons with Various Sauces

Cardons aux sauces diverses teach a precise lesson: the sauce changes, but the vegetable must first be impeccably tender and dry. Peel away every string before the stalks touch heat. A fibrous cardon under a magnificent sauce is still a fibrous cardon, and no saucier can argue it otherwise.

The original entry assumed a brigade with seven finished sauces ready, a saucier to warm the chosen one, stock never off the fire, and a silver drainer waiting for service. At home, you reach for one finished sauce from its own preparation, cook a four-person quantity of cardons in a blanc, then use a warmed deep bowl as the timbale or a small rack set over a platter as the drainer. The brigade's choice and holding are scaffolding, so they go. Proper peeling, gentle cooking, thorough draining, and the correct temperature for the chosen sauce are the dish, so they stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The reward is pale, softly bitter cardon with enough backbone to meet Gravy or Bordelaise Sauce, and enough delicacy for Cream, Hollandaise, or Mousseline Sauce. Before touching the pan, settle the knife question: when a blade enters the thickest piece without pressure, the cardons are ready. If it resists, keep cooking. Ça se rattrape.