Asparagus with Maltaise Sauce

Asparagus with sauce maltaise, a hollandaise made with the juice of blood oranges, is an example of one of those combinations, discovered a century or more ago, that are so perfect they need never be changed.

The French revere asparagus far more than we Americans do, and when the short season arrives in the spring, they pay dearly for those glorious fat white spikes, whose flavor and meaty texture put our poor omnipresent stalks to shame. When I worked at Paris’s then-three-star Viv