Hop-Shoots with Smoked Salmon and Green Asparagus

afsmakeup July 03, 2022

Belgian Dandy recipe: Hop Shoots with green Asparagus and smoked salmon

This is the first of our gentlemen's dishes. Easy to prepare, quality products and a dish that will blow every gastronomist of his seat. Yet, quick and easy to prepare. Exactly what a modern-day dandy needs or wants.

Hop Shoots with green asparagus and smoked salmon

Ingredients for 4:

Salt, pepper, nutmeg, potatoes, butter, parsley/chives
150 to 200 grams of fresh Hop-shoots
350 grams of the best smoked salmon you can find.
1 can of cream
1/2 cube of vegetable stock

The recipe / dish:

Make your potatoe mash. Use the best potatoes you can find and mash it as fine as possible. Make it creamlike with a little bit of milk and good farm-butter. Season with pepper (white), salt and fresh nutmeg.
Let the slices of good quality smoked-salmon come to room temperature. Cut to thin rips of about 1 to 2 cm of width.
In the meanwhile, boil some dairy-cream and reduce by at least ½. Season with pepper, a little salt, and again, some nutmeg. I added some vegetable stock in powder form (1/2 of a cube). It will give your sauce that extra + .
In the meanwhile, ‘sautée’ the hop-shoots for about 1.5 minutes in boiling water.
Stir-fry the green asparagus (only the top halves, tops, + the other part sliced thinly) for about 2 minutes in butter (never use oil because it will not cope with the cream afterwards)
Then add the hop-shoots to the stir-fry.
Dress the (pre-heated of course) plate:
Make 2 or 3 ‘quenelles’ of the mashed potatoes/potatoe-cream. Dress the green asparagus and hop-shoots over and between.
Pour the sauce over and then dress with the slices of smoked salmon.
You can always add some finely chopped parsley or chives over it if you want more colour.

Bon appétit !!

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*Asparagus leftovers: Asparagus cream soup

Take a small cooking pot
Sautée halve an onion (sliced) in butter
Put the asparagus bits in the pot and sautée as well
Add vegetable stock
If you want you can add excess sauce of the previous dish, or cream.
Let cook for 15 to 20 minutes and mix.
Serve with backed breadcrumbs, back-erbsen or grissini’s. Decorate with fresh parsley or chives.