White Asparagus, Flemish Style

White asparagus has always seemed a silly sort of thing to me. I love ordinary asparagus, and eat so much of it when it is in season, and relatively inexpensive, that I can resist it fairly easily when it is not. It never looks as nice off season anyway, when there are little wrinkles round the bottom, and it seems tired.

The white asparagus at the supermarket- besides being perpetually expensive, almost always has that tired look. Anyway, it just seems goofy to mess with a good thing, and turn it anemic. However....

I have been having a good old time making various things from my new cookbook, Ruth Van Waerebeek's Everybody Eats Well in Belgium. Ms. V.W., whom I have grown to trust, is an advocate of white aspargus. Moreover, I am a great fan of the equally pricy, equally blanched begian endive. Leeks are blanched too, aren't they? So, when I saw a relatively un-dessicated bunch of the white at the Giant Eagle, and it was no more overpriced than the regular out of season asparagus-I popped it into the cart.

"Actually," I told myself, "it's to try for my blog." . I have noticed that some bloggers buy their blog "gifts," which they then display. So this is pretty much the same thing. It is like telling your parents that your imaginary friend was responsible for some bit of mischief. Being an adult (more or less, middle-aged, at least, if not entirely responsible), I get to play the dual role of my own exasperated parent. Never mind.

Having already set off on a tangent, I feel compelled to digress just a bit further to recommend to anyone who has not tried it, a recent kitchen purchase which was both super cheap and incredibly satisfying. I cannot tell you how long I have avoided buying kitchen string, and substituted what I believed were clever make do arrangements when string was called for.

Toothpicks and skewers, slices of bread holding stuffing in a chicken cavity, and the ridiculous tussle which is the tying up of a pork shoulder roast with dental floss. This last requires first using giant rubber bands to hold the roast together, since the dental floss will not hold until almost all of it is in place. You then triumphantly snip the rubber bands with scissors. Oi.

Anyway, my giant cone of string, set aside for kitchen use only, is a thing of beauty and a joy for a good long time. I have been thankful to have it so many times since I got it, I cannot begin to say. I am proud to present it here, in the role of asparagus bundler.

This sauce is very easy and I really love it. It hasn't got anything unusual in it, but it nonetheless doesn't taste much like any other sauce I can think of. The white asparagus has a distinctive taste- a bit artichoke-y. It's very nice-the nutmeg seems to bring it out well. I'm certain the sauce would also be just dandy on green asparagus, and I will be indulging in plenty of it when asparagus is in season again. I suspect this sauce would be nice with some other veg too. I haven't figured out which yet; I will give that some thought.

This is what you do to make 1 lb. of asparagus:

Peel the bottoms of the aspargus where they look tough or dubious. Bundle them up with kitchen string. Put a pot of salted water on to boil. In another pan, hardboil an egg. If you have an already hardboiled egg, take it out of the fridge, and warm it up in the boiling water before you add the asparagus. Add the asparagus to the water, and cook til tender.

Meanwhile, melt 1/3 of a stick of butter (about 2 1/2 tbsps) in a pyrex cup in the microwave. Peel egg, and with a fork, mash it thoroughly into the butter. Add 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and a bit of finely minced parsley. When the asparagus is tender, remove it from the water with tongs. Drain it on a kitchen towel. Cut the strings, arrange the asparagus on plates, and pour the sauce over, leaving the tips exposed, for prettiness.

I just ate half this quantity for supper, with a third of a baguette. Oink.

Comments

[Baking Soda]

Hmm, I can almost taste this! I love asparagus, but only buy when they are in (their very short)season. That would be may and june here in the Netherlands. The way you cooked these is the way it is traditionally eaten here too. Just the asparagus, hardboiled egg and some chopped ham with -cleared- butter. Yummy! Btw did you know there is an all-Dutch fare topic on egullet?

[lindy]

Baking soda-I generally only eat aspargus in season, too. Thanks for the egullet tip-I will definitely be checking that out.

[Barbara]

That sauce would never fly in my house--neither Zak nor Morganna will touch a hard-boiled egg. (Which means that for devilled eggs, I go to my mother's house and eat hers.)

Asparagus is one of my chiefest pleasures in life. I believe that I like it almost as well as I like chocolate. Almost as well. But maybe, not quite. But it is close.

My grandparents never had an asparagus patch, but a neighbor did, and he would gift them with huge grocery bags filled to the brim with the stuff. Ten pounds at a time!

I ate it raw, of course. Then, cooked. Mostly overcooked, since that is how all vegetables were eaten in West Virginia (and still are, for that matter) at the time. But we'd eat them in cream of asparagus soup, or simmered with butter and a little bit of lemon.

When it is in season--Zak and I eat it by the pound. Morganna has grown fond of it, too. After we terrace our backyard, we are going to plant our own asparagus patch, along with a new strawberry patch to replace the one we miss from our old house.

As for buying presents for your blog--I have found that I will go out of my way to try new dishes out now that I am not just cooking for my friends and family, but for an extended audience. I think this is one of the best things about blogging, Lindy--and I am glad that you have recognized it, too. It keeps us creative, on our toes, curious about the world. In a word, it makes our lives more interesting, and that is a true gift to us "middle aged" folk!

[redfox]

I like the sound of that sauce for all kinds of vegetables! Broccoli rabe springs instantly to my mind, but also roasted root vegetables. Also in the category of new and versatile sauces, have you tried the "mustard cream" from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Suppers book? She recommends it for with the cabbage and leek gratin (with which it is excellent) but I think it would be great over asparagus, green beans, any kind of mixed roast vegetables...

Your slightly non-canonical spelling of "oy" always makes me briefly imagine that you are a British skinhead punk band, circa 1981.

[lindy]

Barbara: My envy is boundless, strawberries and asparagus! Now that I am an apartment dweller, I only have what I can grown in pots on my little porch-mostly herbs, and on my windowsill at work-where my little lemon tree did produce an actual (one) Meyer lemon this year. I really do miss a garden.

Ms redfox, dear one: It is a rare child indeed who imagines, however briefly, that her parent is a skinhead punk band of any nationality. Can it be something I said in 1981? The mustard sauce sounds lovely- I haven't tried it yet-nor the cabbage and leek dish, which I have been thinking about making.

[Luisa]

In Germany, people go nuts for white asparagus. They even have a season for it: Spargelsaison. It's all anybody eats when it's in season. And I love your digression on kitchen string. I get similarly evangelical about useful kitchen purchases.

[lindy]

Spargelsaison!-I love it- sort of an asparagus holiday. A very worthy occasion for celebration, IMHO. Is it in season the same time of year as green asparagus?

[Kimberly]

I adore asparagus. One of the (many) pleasures of Seattle is that it grows locally, and is plentiful and inexpensive for about a month each year. The one week at the height of the season that it can be had for a dollar a pound, I eat it every. single. day.

How would you compare the taste of white asparagus (which I've never had) to that of the green stuff?

[lindy]

Kimberly-It is a bit artichoke-y. Other than that, I can only say, uselessly, that it tastes less green. Well, I know, not much help. It was very,very good, but has not replaced green asparagus in my heart.

[mzn]

Hi Lindy,
I made this white asparagus+sauce this evening. The combination works great and the sauce was unusual and complimented the vegetable well. The ingredients are more or less the same as Hollandaise, I realized as I was eating it, but the texture and flavor are both different. Unfortunately, my Peruvian asparagus were not equal to the sauce. They were stringy, fibrous. But I'm excited come springtime to give it another try with some fresh local produce. Thanks for the recipe.

[lindy]

mzn: Glad you liked it. I really love this sauce. I'm waiting until the good local asparagus is back, too, though.

I just picked up some belgian beer (man, that stuff is expensive- and so was the beef- I haven't bought a big piece of chuck in a while and I was gobsmacked) and plan on trying a carbonnade this weekend for my friends.