I’ll buy a beer for anyone out there who can tell me, honestly, that he/she’s had white asparagus mousse for dessert.
That’s what the creative minds in the kitchen of Glacis Beisl came up with last night. This charming restaurant, on the back side of Vienna’s bustling Museum Quartier compex, used to be the stables for the Imperial brigade (or some kind of horsey group). It’s now a small café with big ideas…and an unbridled enthusiasm for eating white asparagus when they’re in season. I had them in two of three dinner courses last night.
For those who believe that “Life’s short; eat dessert first,” I’ll start with the white asparagus mousse. Three plump clouds of mousse floated on a rich, condensed sauce of berry coulis accented with aged balsamic vinegar. A shower of powdered sugar and a few ripe straw-and raspberries completed the picture.
The mousse was a fascinating mix of vegetal and sweet flavors. If I had not read the menu, I might not have been able to guess what the main ingredient was (though I’d like to think I could have). There were probably some egg whites in there; maybe a bit of gelatin to hold it all together. The poufs looked like some of the pricey homemade marshmallows on the market now; the beguilingly sweet flavor lasted just a few seconds before becoming just a lovely memory.
The rest of the Glacis Beisl menu included white asparagus with buttered, parslied boiled potatoes, asparagus with smoked ham, asparagus cream soup, and asparagus with prosciutto. (It also offered spring cherries in a salad with cherry tomatoes and goat cheese mousse, and a seafood "bonbon" with a spring garlic bulgur wheat pilaf. But I opted for the Springtime for Vegetables double whammy:
The Eierschwammerltascherl auf Spargelcreme…a mouthful of vowels and consonants that translates simply into ravioli filled with the mushrooms of the day and sauced with, you guessed it, white asparagus cream. Eierschwammerl are the same or close to the chanterelles in the American marketplace. At this time of year in Austria, they’re tiny and firm and fluted. The Beisl’s raviloli were filled with chopped mushrooms and little more. The “sauce” was an inspired puree of white asparagus, a touch of cream, and a flurry of fresh young herbs. I plan to try this trick at home in a risotto, with fried chicken, and as a sauce, tossed with penne and over-roasted tomatoes.
The study-in-white wasn't the prettiest dish in the place, but it had bold, fresh flavors that we lovers of mushrooms and asparagus won't get again until this time next year.
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