Spargelsalat (White Asparagus Salad)

Every year around mid-April, the market stalls at the Grünmarkt in Salzburg start piling up with white asparagus. Fat, pale spears with tight purple tips, wrapped in damp cloths to keep the light out. That's when you know Spargelzeit has arrived, and for the next ten weeks, Austrians eat asparagus the way other countries eat bread. In soup. With hollandaise. As a main course with new potatoes and brown butter. But the way I love it best is as a salad, dressed warm and simple, where you can actually taste the asparagus itself.

Gretel always said the Viennese judged a cook by two things: her broth and her Spargel. The asparagus had to be peeled properly, cooked to the exact moment between crisp and soft, and served in a way that honored the ingredient instead of burying it. This salad does that. You poach the spears whole in lightly sweetened water with a squeeze of lemon, then dress them while they're still warm with a vinaigrette built on their own cooking liquid. The asparagus absorbs the dressing and the flavor deepens as it sits. Nothing complicated. Nothing clever. Just a beautiful ingredient treated with the respect it deserves.

In my grandmother Eva's kitchen in Kent, we made this with whatever asparagus the greengrocer had, usually green, because white asparagus was hard to find in England in the 1990s. But on our trips to Austria, Gretel would order Spargelsalat at every Gasthaus we visited, and she'd taste each one like a judge at a competition. Too much oil. Not enough vinegar. Overcooked. Undercooked. I learned more about this dish from watching her eat it than from any recipe. Now I serve it at my restaurant every spring, and I think she'd approve.