Nigel's asparagus

"Asparagus is still a huge treat. ... No good will come from matching asparagus with anything that might overshadow its gentle nature. Any accompaniment needs to know its place." Nigel Slater

It's a very springlike, almost summery day today, and after a walk I sat down to my blog, and as every day, glanced at Nigel Slater's Tender Volume 1, sitting on my desk festooned with yellow post-its, dozens of them. So lacking any other brilliant ideas I decided to see if any of them hit a nerve today.

So in keeping with spring, and the fact that asparagus has returned to the shops, I decided to tackle his chapter on asparagus, which begins with this rather lovely photograph by Jonathan Lovekin. These are the thin kind - which he calls sprues - one of three types that he names - basically, thick, medium and thin. Oddly he doesn't mention white asparagus at all - either in this book or elsewhere. Odd because, living in England as he does, and therefore very close to France, which surely he visits from time to time, be must be aware of how much the French love white asparagus, claiming it to be the king of asparagus. I personally am not convinced, and so possibly Nigel isn't really. So there will be no mention of white asparagus here. Besides we never seem to see it here.

Before I move on to the actual asparagus and what Nigel does with it, I'm also including this other photograph, in his asparagus section. I assume it is an asparagus plant left to flower after the harvest is finished, but I'm really not sure because the photograph is so dark apart from the flowers, that it is difficult to see if the plant could indeed be an asparagus plant. So I checked out the botanical illustrations because Nigel, elsewhere, talks about tall fronds of asparagus sporting red berries. And indeed most of the botanical drawings do focus on the berries and the feathery fronds. But the one below did seem to show some modest flowers before the berries - not nearly as large as those in the photograph however. Not at all relevant I guess, but Interesting. I suspect the photograph of something completely other.

I thought of growing asparagus once but was put off by having to wait a year or two before the crop, but just think if I had tried, and they had grown - never a certainty for me - then I would be picking my own asparagus every day and wondering what on earth to do with it.

But I didn't and so I buy it - well it is fairly locally grown - on the way down to the Mornington Peninsula - so I can feel good about it. And yes, in spite of its reasonable cost it does indeed feel luxurious and special.

So what does Nigel do with it? Mostly and particularly at the start of the season when it's a really special treat, he just boils/steams it:

"Just lower the bundle of stalks tenderly into a shallow pan of merrily boiling water. If they are too long, let the points rest on the edge of the pan, where they will steam while the thicker ends tenderise in the water."

For a few years now I have been doing something similar following Madhur Jaffrey's advice. I gently heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, toss the asparagus in it for a few moments, add a little water - less than a quarter of a cup, cover with a lid and cook until tender - 5-10 minutes, depending on the thickness. Sometimes I use butter rather than oil.

For Nigel:

"Life is full of small rituals, and never more so than in my kitchen. The first asparagus of the year is boiled within minutes of my walking through the door with it, butter is carefully melted so that it is soft and formless, but not yet liquid, then I eat it with the sort of reverence I usually reserve for mulberries or a piece of exquisite sashimi. It is almost impossible not to respect those first spears of the year."

There is no photograph in his book, or elsewhere that I can find of this 'almost recipe'. The one above for Warm buttered asparagus is from the Cooks Without Borders website. The butter has melted, but yes, it's really the same thing. And yes, it is probably the best way to eat asparagus. With your fingers.

Nigel has a few other 'almost recipes' the first being:

"My all-time favourite asparagus lunch is one where a small, parchment-coloured soft cheese is allowed to melt lazily over freshly boiled spears. The warm cheese oozing from its bloomy crust makes an impromptu sauce."

Again no photograph - the one above is the closest that I could come to it - Asparagus, burrata and brown butter from Justine Schofield/Everyday Gourmet. Others, complicated things by roasting the asparagus with cheese on top, or by making a cheese sauce to pour over the top. The burrata idea - with a few capers I see - seems similar in conception to Nigel's. Mind you when I look in Tender Volume 1 I see that he has a slightly longer version in which the cooked asparagus is brushed with olive oil or butter, sliced cheese is placed on top and then it is all placed under the grill "until the cheese melts". Maybe he'd had a few goes in which the cheese didn't melt enough.

His next 'almost recipe has two slightly different manifestations. This time the extra ingredient is pancetta. In Tender Volume 1 it appears with Parmesan. Boil some asparagus and place in an oven dish. Fry some pancetta in butter until "its fat is golden", tip it all over the asparagus, sprinkle with Parmesan and bake for 10 minutes. The other recipe for Asparagus with pancetta has no cheese, the asparagus is cooked on a griddle and breadcrumbs are involved.

A similar 'non recipe' which is also not online and has no photograph is this:

"Roll lightly cooked spears in thinly sliced ham, lay them in a shallow dish, cover with a cheese sauce and a heavy dusting of Parmesan and bake until bubbling."

A child could do that - and it would be fun to make and delicious to eat.

My next group of his offerings are hardly more complicated, and to be honest I'm not sure about the Roast asparagus, green chillies and lime but the others look pretty good: Steamed asparagus, smoked salmon and dill cream; Steamed asparagus, miso mayonnaise; Asparagus and chicken with basil dressing - not as complicated as it sounds because the chicken is leftover roast chicken.

Within the book he also tells you how to roast asparagus, and make a tart, and online there are several other slightly more complicated recipes. But I shall end with two different versions of the same dish which are just a little more complicated and more like a main meal perhaps - A pilaf of asparagus, broad beans and mint - from the book and an online version Asparagus pilau, mint butter which is slightly different and perhaps demonstrates how he, like most of us, continue to fiddle with the dishes that we make.

Bless you Nigel for sucking us in with your beautiful prose, and to Jonathan Lovekin for his stunning photographs - apologies for the poor scans of those from the book - and thank you to the asparagus growers of Koo Wee Rup just over an hour away - who provide almost all of Australia (and export as well) with its gorgeous asparagus. I shall be buying some more tomorrow.