Possibly my favourite vegetable of all time. Asparagus has a short season and when it comes in it will be on our table frequently. Healthy, easy to cook, versatile and delicious. Here are a few of my favourite recipes for cooking with green asparagus.
Take the spears and snap off the ends (not the tips!). They automatically snap where the asparagus becomes tender.
Fresh asparagus from the Loire
The easiest way to cooking asparagus for me is to steam it gently for about 10 minutes. You can do this in a colander over a saucepan of simmering water if you don’t have a steamer. Test with a knife for tenderness, it wants to be tender but with some bite. Remove from the steamer and add a couple of good knobs of butter, a sprinkle of sea salt and a grind of black pepper. When I was young, my Mum used to melt a large piece of butter in a small saucepan, pour this into a jug and we would pass it round the table to drizzle over as much or as little as we liked (a lot in my case as butter is another of my weaknesses).
Another very easy way is to pop the spears into a roasting pan, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. Similarly you can griddle the spears directly until lightly charred and tender. Just dress with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some parmesan.
Spears of asparagus wrapped in parma ham ready to be pan fried
Pan fried until crispy and served with a pile of roquette dressed with oil and balsamic and some parmesan shavings
For something a little more substantial and that can be served as an entrée (appetizer or starter), steam the asaparagus as above leaving it with a slight crunch then refresh in cold water to stop it cooking and dry off. Take a slice of parma ham and wrap it around 3 or 4 spears of asparagus. You can leave it at this stage the day before and carry on just before serving.
When ready to serve, heat a non-stick pan and add a drizzle of olive oil. Place the asparagus bundles in the pan and fry until the ham is crispy and brown. Remove and serve warm with a little roquette dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and some parmesan shavings.
Asparagus with a softly poached egg
Getting a little more substantial still, steam the asparagus as above and serve with a poached egg or a 7 minute boiled egg. For a poached egg, bring a pan of water to the boil and turn it down to a simmer, add a teaspoon of vinegar to the water, swirl it around and then pour the egg in gently. Poach for around 3 minutes. For a 7 minute boiled egg just add the egg to water and boil for exactly 7 minutes before cooling under cold water and peeling. A few pan fried lardons adds crunch and flavour.
The other night I went a bit retro and served it with hollandaise sauce. I used an easy recipe of Rick Steins which doesn’t involve painstaking beating in of melted butter over a long period. This is not for those counting calories but fantastic if you are going low carb!
225g unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons of water
Juice of half a lemon
Salt to taste
Paprika (a sprinkle)
Take a small saucepan with a couple of centimetres of water on the stove, bring it to the boil and reduce to a simmer. Place your 2 eggs yolks and 2 tablespoons of water in a bowl and place the bowl over the simmering water taking care that it doesn’t touch the water. Using a hand held electric whisk, whisk the 2 together until they become pale and frothy and have increased in volume. Then, gently pour in the melted butter being careful to stop when the curdy white solids start to appear. Whisk together for a minute of two, add the lemon juice and salt to taste. This recipe is lighter than a traditional hollandaise (hard to believe I know but it is) and would generously serve 6 with asparagus as a starter.
As a note, the violet asparagus that is also delicious and grown widely here in the Loire, requires much longer cooking and preparation so is used and prepared differently. More about that another time..
