Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
LATIN NAME
Asparagus officinalis
SEASONALITY
April–June
MORE RECIPES
St George’s mushroom and asparagus pizza; Green garlic, asparagus and oven-scrambled eggs
SOURCING
It’s possible to buy asparagus at any time of year. You could, if you wanted, char-grill it on the barbie in August, slather it with hollandaise for your Christmas dinner, or take full advantage of its suggestive form and dunk it seductively into a soft-boiled egg on Valentine’s Day. But, while I strongly believe you should explore all these methods of serving asparagus, you’ll be selling yourself, and this glorious vegetable, very short if you eat it in any month that isn’t April, May or June. So draw a metaphorical black line through the rest of the year and instead cram all the joy of asparagus-eating into the brief but blissful period when the British crop is being cut.
When it comes to what you might call seasonal sensitivity – the degree to which the quality of a vegetable is dependent on the time it’s harvested – asparagus has to be at the top of the tree. A member of the lily family, an asparagus plant is formed of a matted, rooty ‘crown’ beneath the surface of the soil, from which the spears are sent forth in the late spring. The crown depletes its supplies of natural sugars as the weeks progress, so the spears become less sweet: early season asparagus is always the best.
Once cut, asparagus spears deteriorate quickly too because they continue to consume whatever sugars they have at an astonishing rate, particularly in the first 24 hours. Flavour and tenderness diminish at a pace: asparagus eaten more than 3 days after cutting (I’d include pretty much all imported asparagus in that bracket) is likely to be bland and coarse.
If you’re starting off with freshly cut asparagus, keeping the spears wrapped in a wet tea towel in the fridge will buy you a little time – perhaps 12 hours of extended sweetness. Some people store it upright in a jug of water, which also helps. Should you manage to bag some very fresh asparagus that you can’t eat straight away, you can also preserve its flavour by blanching it in boiling water for 2 minutes then plunging it into cold water before storing it in the fridge for up to 2 days. Blanch the asparagus again before eating, or roast or griddle it.
Timing, then, is everything with asparagus. But our climate and countryside are particularly well suited to producing this unique vegetable and, if you catch it early and fresh, it is extraordinarily good. Its flavour is exquisite and unlike anything else. As well as all that natural sugar, the taste is delicately informed by sulphur-containing compounds, making it not just sweet, but earthy and ever-so-slightly farmyardy (in a good way).
If cut from your own garden and cooked immediately, asparagus is sublime. If you don’t grow your own, at least start looking for it very close to home – and if you can buy it from the producer themselves, so much the better. There are lots of growers who sell at the roadside, at farmers’ markets or directly into farm shops; some even offer a pick-your-own option.
You may find such fresh, local asparagus a little pricey, but there’s good reason for that. It takes 3 years of nurturing before a crown produces its first usable crop. That crop is just a handful of slender spears – maybe a dozen per plant. The season spans barely 70 days and the stuff has to be cut by hand: it’s incredibly labour-intensive. View it as the delicacy it is: a seasonal treat, not a year-round staple.
While I’m always looking for tempting new ways to enjoy asparagus, I do think that when you have a bunch of the very sweetest, super-fresh, early season spears in your hands, you should do as little to them as possible. That initial, glorious bundle should be enjoyed, reverentially, in the simplest ways. I eat the very first baby stems from my own patch raw, with just a simple dressing.
For anything thicker than a toddler’s thumb, bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil. Snap off the woody ends, which will break naturally at the point where the stem becomes tender, and give the spears a thorough rinse (the feathery tips often harbour grains of grit). Drop into the boiling water and cook just until the tip of a knife pierces a stem without effort – with really fresh stuff, you’re looking at 2–3 minutes. Spears that are 1 or 2 days old need more like 5–6 minutes. Drain, trickle over a little melted butter, season and you’re away.
Dunking just-cooked asparagus into the hot, golden yolk of a soft-boiled egg, into which I’ve first added a nut of butter, a few drops of cider vinegar and a pinch of salt and pepper (for a kind of instant, improvised hollandaise sauce), is another favourite way to eat the season’s first, finest stems. And after that, I’ll move on to roasting, griddling and barbecuing (in all cases, lightly blanching the spears first).
When buying, look for asparagus with a bright green colour and very firm, undamaged stems. Many varieties have a beautiful, purplish blush to their tips that makes them look like just-dipped paintbrushes. You may also come across completely purple varieties. All are good (though some of this colour will be lost on cooking).
White asparagus, now being grown in the UK, is produced by ‘blanching’ – banking the soil up against the spears as they develop. I find its popularity a little mysterious: it tastes milder or, in other words, less of asparagus, than its green cousin – and why would anyone want that?
RAW ASPARAGUS AND RADISH SALAD
This super-simple, colourful dish is a real celebration of early summer and an ideal way to use very fresh, reasonably slender spears of asparagus. Serves 2 as a starter or side dish
250g asparagus
75g radishes
2–3 spring onions
2 tbsp shredded mint
A few shavings of Parmesan or other hard, salty cheese, or a few nuggets of ricotta (optional)
FOR THE DRESSING
3 tbsp extra virgin olive or rapeseed oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
¼ tsp English mustard
Sea salt and black pepper
To make the dressing, put all the ingredients into a jam jar, screw on the lid and shake vigorously to emulsify.
Snap off the woody ends of the asparagus. Slice the spears as thinly as you can, either using a vegetable peeler and working along the spears to produce ‘ribbons’, or cutting across the spears with a sharp knife at a sharp angle to create elongated, oval slivers. Any odd bits of asparagus left over can be used in a soup or risotto. Put the slivered asparagus in a bowl. Add the dressing and toss well.
Trim and thinly slice the radishes and add them to the asparagus. Trim and finely slice the spring onions and add these too, along with the mint. Toss gently to combine, then taste and add more seasoning if necessary. You can leave the salad now for anything up to a few hours – the veg will soften and ‘relax’ in the dressing – or serve it straight away.
Spoon on to serving plates and finish, if you like, with some wafers of salty cheese, or a few little nuggets of ricotta. Give it a final little grinding of black pepper, and serve.
