Chef Freja
Butterdejs-Tarteletskaller
Danish puff pastry tartelet shells folded and chilled in patient layers, baked tall and golden until they shatter at the first bite. The architecture that holds a hundred different fillings.
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Tarteletter med Hons i Asparges
Created by Chef Freja
The canonical Danish celebration starter. Poached chicken and white asparagus in a silky cream sauce, spooned into warm puff pastry shells. Mormor-mad at every confirmation table in May.
Appetizers & Snacks
Danish
Dinner Party
Special Occasion
Celebration
25 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 10 min total
Yield6 servings (12 tarteletter)
There is a moment in May when the white asparagus arrives at the market and the confirmation invitations begin to fill the calendar. The whole month tilts toward celebration. Families gather, the good plates come down from the cupboard, and somewhere in every Danish kitchen, a pot of chicken is poaching slowly while butter melts into flour for the sauce that defines the season's most beloved first course.
Tarteletter med hons i asparges is mormor-mad in its purest form. Grandmother cooking. The dish that means a child has been confirmed, an anniversary has come around, a Sunday has been declared important. Crisp puff pastry shells, tender poached chicken, white asparagus from the spring fields, all bound in a velouté so silky it almost blushes when you spoon it. There is nothing rustic about it and nothing pretentious about it either. It sits exactly where Danish celebration food belongs: generous, elegant, made with love, and never trying too hard.
The technique is straightforward, but every step has a reason and I will walk you through each one. Pay attention to two things in particular. First, the chicken must poach gently, never boil; the difference is the difference between silk and rope. Second, when you stir the egg yolk and cream into the sauce at the end, do it off the heat and temper it slowly. Hurry that step and you get scrambled egg in your sauce. Take it slowly and you get the smoothest sauce in the Danish repertoire.
If you can find fresh white asparagus, the season decides. Danish white asparagus is in from early May through midsummer, and it is worth every minute of peeling. Outside that window, a good jar of European white asparagus is what your mormor would have reached for too. This is a dish that has always been generous about meeting the cook where they are.
Tarteletter arrived in Danish kitchens through the French haute cuisine that influenced the Danish royal court in the 19th century, where puff pastry vol-au-vents were a fixture of formal banquets. The dish moved from court to home in the early 20th century, when commercially baked tarteletter shells became available in Danish bakeries and supermarkets, putting French technique within reach of every household. By the post-war decades it had settled into its permanent place as the celebration starter at confirmations, christenings, and silver weddings, and the pairing with white asparagus, in season for only a few weeks each spring, locked the dish into the Danish calendar in a way that has not loosened since.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
tarteletter shells
Quantity
12 pre-baked
chicken thighs
Quantity
500g
bone in and skin on
onion
Quantity
1 small
peeled and halved
carrot
Quantity
1
roughly chopped
leek
Quantity
1 small
white part only, halved
bay leaf
Quantity
1
white peppercorns
Quantity
8
water
Quantity
1 litre
white asparagus
Quantity
500g fresh, or 1 jar (500g drained weight)
unsalted butter
Quantity
60g
plain flour
Quantity
50g
double cream
Quantity
150ml
egg yolk
Quantity
1
dry white wine (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
fresh lemon juice
Quantity
1 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
white pepper
Quantity
to taste
freshly grated nutmeg
Quantity
a pinch
fresh chervil or chives
Quantity
small bunch
finely chopped
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| tarteletter shells | 12 pre-baked |
| chicken thighsbone in and skin on | 500g |
| onionpeeled and halved | 1 small |
| carrotroughly chopped | 1 |
| leekwhite part only, halved | 1 small |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| white peppercorns | 8 |
| water | 1 litre |
| white asparagus | 500g fresh, or 1 jar (500g drained weight) |
| unsalted butter | 60g |
| plain flour | 50g |
| double cream | 150ml |
| egg yolk | 1 |
| dry white wine (optional) | 1 tablespoon |
| fresh lemon juice | 1 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| white pepper | to taste |
| freshly grated nutmeg | a pinch |
| fresh chervil or chivesfinely chopped | small bunch |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy-bottomed pot, 4 litre, for poaching
- •Heavy saucepan, 2 litre, for the sauce
- •Fine mesh sieve
- •Whisk
- •Vegetable peeler
- •Baking sheet
Instructions
- 1
Poach the chicken
Place the chicken thighs in a heavy pot with the onion, carrot, leek, bay leaf, peppercorns, and a generous pinch of salt. Pour over the water. Bring slowly to a bare simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Never let it boil. A hard boil makes the chicken stringy and clouds the stock. You want the surface barely trembling, with the occasional lazy bubble breaking through.
The poaching liquid becomes the base of your sauce. Treat it like you would a stock, because that is what it becomes. Skim any foam from the surface in the first few minutes. - 2
Rest and shred the chicken
Lift the chicken out and let it rest on a plate until cool enough to handle. Strain the poaching liquid through a fine sieve and keep it warm. You will need about 500ml for the sauce. When the chicken has cooled, pull the meat from the bones in generous bite-sized pieces. Discard the skin and bones. The pieces should look like food, not threads. This is mormor-mad, grandmother cooking, and grandmothers do not shred chicken into dust.
- 3
Prepare the asparagus
If you are using fresh white asparagus, peel each spear from just below the tip down to the base. White asparagus has a tough outer layer and skipping this step gives you a sauce full of fibrous strings. Snap off the woody ends, then cut the spears into pieces about three centimetres long. Simmer in lightly salted water for about eight minutes, until tender to the tip of a knife. Drain and set aside. If you are using jarred asparagus, drain it well and reserve a few tablespoons of the liquid; cut the spears into the same size pieces. The jarred kind is already cooked, so it goes in at the very end.
Fresh white asparagus has a short Danish season, May into June. When it is in, use it. The rest of the year, jarred white asparagus from a good European brand is what your mormor would have used too, and there is no shame in it. - 4
Build the velouté
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over a medium heat. When it foams, add the flour all at once and whisk it into a smooth paste. Cook this roux for two full minutes, stirring constantly. You are toasting the raw flour out, not browning it. The smell will turn from raw and chalky to faintly biscuity. That is the moment to move on. A roux that is undercooked tastes of paste; a roux that is browned makes the wrong sauce for this dish.
- 5
Add the stock
Pour in the warm poaching liquid in a slow steady stream, whisking constantly to keep the sauce smooth. Add the white wine if you are using it. Bring to a gentle simmer and let it cook for about ten minutes, whisking now and then, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. It should be glossy and pourable, not gluey. If it goes too thick, loosen with a splash more stock or a little of the asparagus liquid.
- 6
Enrich with cream and yolk
In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk into the cream. Take the sauce off the heat. Spoon a ladle of the hot sauce into the cream mixture and whisk it through, then pour the warmed cream back into the pan, whisking all the while. This is called tempering, and the reason for it is simple: pour cold yolk straight into hot sauce and you get scrambled egg. Warm it gradually and you get silk. Return the pan to the gentlest heat, just enough to warm through. Never let it boil from this point on, or the yolk will split.
- 7
Combine and season
Fold the shredded chicken and the asparagus pieces into the sauce. Warm everything through gently, no more than a minute or two. Season with salt, white pepper, a small pinch of nutmeg, and the lemon juice. Taste it. Adjust. The sauce should be rounded and rich, with a bright lift from the lemon that keeps it from feeling heavy. You will know when it is right because you will want to eat a second spoonful straight from the pan.
- 8
Warm the tarteletter
Heat the oven to 180C. Place the tarteletter shells on a baking sheet and warm them for five minutes, no longer. They are already baked. You are just crisping them and bringing out the buttery scent of the puff pastry. A cold tarteletter under hot sauce goes soggy in seconds. A warm one holds its shell long enough for the first bite to shatter the way it should.
- 9
Fill and serve
Place two warm tarteletter on each plate. Spoon the chicken and asparagus filling generously into each shell, letting a little spill over the rim onto the plate. Scatter the chopped chervil or chives over the top. Serve at once, while the pastry is still crisp and the sauce is still glossy. Tak for mad.
Chef Tips
- •Buy the best tarteletter shells you can find. A bakery version is always better than the supermarket kind, and the difference is enormous. The shell carries half the dish.
- •Use chicken thighs, not breasts. Thigh meat stays tender and flavourful through poaching, where breast can turn dry and stringy. This is one of those choices that costs you nothing and changes everything.
- •If you are making this for a confirmation or a dinner party, poach the chicken and make the sauce base earlier in the day. Reheat gently, stir in the cream and yolk, fold in the chicken and asparagus, and warm the shells just before serving. The dish wants to be assembled at the last minute but everything else can wait.
- •A glass of dry Riesling or a crisp Alsace pinot blanc is what you want alongside. Something with enough acidity to cut the cream and enough fruit to meet the asparagus. An old-fashioned Danish hvidvin from a good wine shop will do nicely.
Advance Preparation
- •Poach the chicken and strain the stock up to a day ahead. Keep the meat and stock separately in the fridge.
- •The velouté base (without the cream and yolk) can be made earlier in the day and gently reheated. Add the cream-and-yolk enrichment, the chicken, and the asparagus just before serving.
- •Never assemble the tarteletter ahead of time. The pastry softens within minutes of meeting the sauce. Fill and serve at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 220g)
Calories
515 calories
Total Fat
35 g
Saturated Fat
19 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
14 g
Cholesterol
155 mg
Sodium
470 mg
Total Carbohydrates
28 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
16 g
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