Asparagus Dutch Style

It's very difficult to rate this recipe as the dish consists of a couple of a few ingredients cooked seperately (if at all) and then served together - anyone can do, possibly even without instructions. You definitely won't win Masterchef with it, and yet it is so delicious that every year I know that this will be one of the best dishes in that year.

But perhaps it's a good way of illuminating a few cultural differences across Europe. Asparagus in Britain, and in most other English-speaking countries, I assume, is normally the green kind. In Holland and Germany, the slightly thicker white kind is standard. It's usually eaten with either melted, clarified butter or sauce hollandaise, smoked (Germany) or cooked (Holland) ham, new potatoes, and sometimes an egg (hard-boiled, poached, omelette, whatever; mainly Holland, I believe). And honestly, what else do you need? You won't need the parsley and nutmeg De Moor recommends. You could do smoked fish, eg. smoked salmon or smoked herring, although that is a less classic combination.

We got the timing slightly wrong - our asparagus was too soft; I'm not sure whether the fault lies with the cooking instructions or that it just took too long to bring the water to a boil (I anticipated that point slightly too early). Remember to take the ham out of the fridge early enough to bring it to room temperature. Other than that, I believe there is little that can go wrong.