The featured vegetable on my "Twelve
Months of Fresh Food" calendar for the month of April is asparagus.
Like last month's featured food (arugula) I
have done many posts that feature asparagus...it's probably my favorite spring
vegetable. I start buying it as soon as
it begins to show up at the market sometime in late March and enjoy it several
times a week until the season is over sometime in June.
At my house asparagus appears in pasta
(of course),
 |
| Alfredo Sauce with Asparagus & Spring Onions |
soups,
 |
| Cream of Asparagus Soup |
tarts,
 |
| Asparagus Tart |
mixed vegetable ragouts,
 |
| Spring Vegetable Medley of Spring Onions, Artichokes, Asparagus & Peas |
grain pilafs
 |
| Bulgur Pilaf with Asparagus & Peas |
and salads....
 |
| Composed Salad with Asparagus, Beets, Arugula and Egg Salad Crostini.. |
Even pizza.
 |
| Asparagus Pizza with Prosciutto and Three Cheeses |
It is a perfect side vegetable--delicious dressed with nothing but
butter (and a few herbs)
 |
| Salmon with Medley of Buttered Asparagus & Peas |
or olive oil.
 |
| With a Mushroom & Potato Spanish Tortilla |
And it has a
special affinity for eggs.
 |
| Asparagus, Walnut & Goat Cheese Salad topped with a Fried Egg |
It is in this
guise—as a simple accompaniment to scrambled eggs—that I wrote about it in a "basics" post a few years ago.
In that post I went into detail about how to choose asparagus...how to
store and clean it...and then shared my favorite cooking method—a simple étuvée.
Besides eggs, asparagus has many other friends in the food world: Cured meats, smoked fish, mushrooms, peas, artichokes, arugula, onions, nuts (especially pine nuts, walnuts & hazelnuts), cheese (fresh
and aged goat, Gruyère, Parmesan, Pecorino, Gouda, Fontina, mascarpone, ricotta...), salty/briny condiments (olives, capers, anchovies), Dijon mustard, orange, lemon, butter, cream, olive and nut oils and fresh herbs (basil, thyme, tarragon, parsley and mint...). It is easy to see how you could eat asparagus several times a week for the few weeks of spring and never get bored.
Since I have already written a basics
post about asparagus, I thought that for my calendar post this month I would
share a preparation that was new to me:
Asparagus Pesto. I ran across it
while working on an upcoming class. It
is from Michael Chiarello's Tra Vigne cookbook...and it is delicious.
There are no surprise ingredients in this
pesto. It features cooked asparagus puréed with basil, pine nuts, parmesan,
garlic and olive oil. Because of the
water content in the asparagus, the resulting pesto is lighter and fluffier
than one would expect. It is wonderful
on pasta (which is how I'm sharing it today in Chiarello's recipe that is reminiscent of a classic Ligurian pasta with basil pesto, green beans and potatoes). But because of its almost mousse-like
texture, it also makes a fine spread for crostini or bruschetta (perfect as an
accompaniment to a baked egg....or topped with a poached egg....).
If you have never cooked asparagus
before, the recipes in today's post are a perfect place to start. In both recipes the asparagus is simply
cooked in rapidly boiling, salted water—the tenderness to which it is cooked is
the main difference between the two. For
the pesto, the asparagus should be cooked until it is soft....five minutes or
more. I would consider this to be too
soft for a side dish or garnish, but it is perfect if the goal is a purée.
Don't cook it too long though, or you will lose the bright green color. Furthermore, since the goal is soft asparagus
with a bright green color, the recipe directs you to shock the cooked asparagus
in a bowl of ice water or under cold running water which will stop the cooking
process and "set" the color.
For the asparagus "garnish" in
the pasta dish, the asparagus is cooked for less time. You want it to be tender...but to still have
texture. The balance between texture and
tenderness is up to you. Somewhere
around 2 to 3 minutes should be about right, but the only way to know if it is
done to your liking is to fish a piece out of the boiling water and taste
it. This method—boiling just to the
point of tenderness—is the one that you will probably use the most often. It is perfect preparation for asparagus that
will be making its way into the many and varied dishes that it will appear in
over the next couple of months.
Pasta with Asparagus Pesto & Baby Potatoes
1/2 lb. small
potatoes, scrubbed and sliced 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick
Olive oil
4 oz. (trimmed
weight) asparagus, cut into 2 to 3 inch lengths at an angle
3/4 lb. Fettuccine,
orecchiette or farfalle
1 recipe Asparagus pesto (recipe below)
Salt
Toasted pine nuts,
for garnish
Freshly grated Parmesan,
for garnish
Place the potatoes
in a high-sided sauté pan with a lid and add water to just barely cover the
potatoes. Add a drizzle of olive oil and
season with salt. Simmer the potatoes
until they are tender; set aside.
Blanch the asparagus
in 6 quarts of boiling well salted water until just tender (about 2 to 3
minutes). Lift the asparagus out of the
water and spread on a towel. Add the
pasta to the water and cook until al dente.
Drain, reserving some of the pasta water.
Place the pesto in a
large bowl. Add enough pasta water
(about a quarter cup) to the pesto to thin it to a sauce consistency. Add the drained potatoes, the blanched
asparagus and the pasta and toss to coat...adding more pasta water (you may
need as much as another quarter cup) and/or a drizzle of olive oil as necessary
to obtain a fluid sauce.
Taste and
correct the seasoning. Serve
immediately, garnished with pine nuts and Parmesan and passing freshly grated Parmesan
separately. Serves 4
Note: A one pound
bunch of asparagus will yield about 8 oz. of trimmed asparagus. (Trim by grabbing each spear of asparagus and
bending until it snaps—it will naturally snap at the point where the spear
transitions from tough and fibrous to tender.
Discard the fibrous ends.) This
is the exact amount needed for the pesto and the finished pasta. I like to trim the whole bunch of asparagus,
cut it all (at an angle) into 2 to 3 inch lengths and then divide into two
piles—making sure all the tips are in the pile that will go into the finished
pasta. If the asparagus is very fat,
make sure that it is cut on a very sharp angle...and cut the tips in half
lengthwise. Use the water that you use
to blanch the stems for the pesto to cook the asparagus and pasta for the
finished dish.
(Recipe adapted from The Tra Vigne Cookbook—Seasons in the California Wine Country, Michael Chiarello)
Asparagus Pesto
4 oz. (trimmed
weight) asparagus, cut into 2 to 3 inch lengths at an angle
1 small clove of
garlic, peeled and smashed to a purée with a pinch of salt
1/4 c. lightly
toasted pine nuts
1/4 c. packed basil
leaves (about 1/4 ounce), washed and dried
1/4 c. extra virgin
olive oil
1/4 c. grated
Parmesan (3/4 oz.)
Salt, to taste
In a pot of boiling,
well salted water, blanch the asparagus until quite tender—about 5
minutes. Transfer to a bowl of ice
water, or rinse under cold running water, to stop the cooking process. Blot
dry.
Place the cooked
asparagus, garlic, basil and pine nuts in the food processor and process until
the ingredients are finely and evenly chopped and beginning to purée (stop the
food processor a couple of times to scrape down the sides). With the food processor running, add the oil
in a thin stream to achieve a sauce that is the consistency of mayonnaise. If necessary, add a bit more oil. Scrape down the sides; add the cheese and
pulse to combine. Thin with water if
necessary to achieve a thick, saucy pesto.
Add salt to taste. Makes a scant
1 cup.
Note: This recipe makes exactly what you will need
for 12 oz. of pasta (which will serve 4)...but is easily doubled if you would
like to have leftovers for other uses.
It will keep, filmed with oil, in a tightly covered container in the
refrigerator for several days.
(Recipe adapted from The Tra Vigne Cookbook—Seasons in the California Wine Country, Michael Chiarello)
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