TRANSCRIPT Ep 19
Welcome to The Simmering Chef.
Cooking with a smidgen of anger, a pinch of crass, a dollop of irreverence, a sprinkling of science, and a handful of spice.
Hello and welcome to all my listeners! It’s a beautiful spring day here at the Atelier Rorschach Culinary Studios in beautiful College Park, home of me, Janet, The Simmering Chef. In the transcript, there is a photo of the neighbor’s Oklahoma Redbud in bloom. Those may be my favorite blooming tree because they remind me that the seasons turn, turn, turn.
Today’s letter is from Memphis, Tennessee asking about one of my favorite springtime vegetables, so let’s jump in.
Dear The Simmering Chef,
Thank you so much for your short podcasts because I can listen to them almost anywhere without pausing and remembering to finish listening later. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. Some podcasts go on for two hours or more. Who has that kind of time?
I’ll be brief because there are things need doing around here. My question is about asparagus. They look beautiful in the store and are inexpensive right now, but if I buy a bundle, how do I know if I chose a good one, and what do I do with it once I get the bundle home?
Thanks for your help and asparagus guidance,
The Singing Duchess of Memphis
Dear The Singing Duchess,
There’s a story that goes with your sign off, but you leave us hanging. What up with that?
Good spot recognizing that asparagus is inexpensive right now, because it is. It’s in season! Funny how that works.
When asparagus hits the shelves, I know spring has arrived. This prized, ancient, suavely-flavored vegetable is the tender shoot of a perennial plant that grows big and feathery.
Funnily, it’s a relative of onions and lilies but tastes nothing like them. They have a delicately sweet and grassy flavor that is enhanced with a bit of browned butter and sea salt, grilled, or even made into a tart. There are so many recipes out there that it would be hard to go wrong with any of them. I’ll leave the Googling to you. Instead, let me give you a few tips to help you buy, store, and cook them.
Asparagus is best eaten in the springtime. Otherwise, it becomes woody, more bitter, and exorbitantly expensive.
Yes, they come in green and the more delilcately-flavored white. The bundles of white asparagus are always expensive and would look superb on an Easter dinner table.
Look for plump, crisp, straight stems with tightly furled tips. If the stems are limp, wilted, shriveled, or the tips are spreading open, these aren’t fresh and won’t taste good. Don’t waste your money.
For that matter, don’t waste your money on canned asparagus. Texturally, they are abhorently slimely and mushy. Just, just, just BLECK!
When you get home from the store with your purchase, trim a bit of the bottoms off and store the asparagus upright in a container with a quarter-inch of water covering the bottoms. If your house is cool, you can store the container on the counter or refrigerate for two or three days. Remember to change the water out daily, but don’t store them on the counter for a week and wonder why they don’t taste good. This method is used when you plan to consume the asparagus within a few days of purchasing it.
When you are ready to cook your assparagus, know that it is always a bit woody at the end. Gently bend the stem closer to the bottom until it snaps in two. The bottom-snapped end can be saved to make asparagus stock while the top end is cooked.
Once you’ve removed the woody end, trim the bottom at an angle so it looks nice.
Next, using a vegetable peeler, scrape away the bottom half of the outer stalk to remove the bitter outer layer of bark. You don’t have to do this, but I find doing this enhances the asparagus’ sweetness, and it’s a step that seperates the chef from the homecook. A chef always goes the extra mile.
Steam your asparagus until just tender. It should still look vibrantly green.
Lastly, you could finish with a toss of butter, but that’s up to you. I like my asparagus very simple. Its season is so short that I want to enjoy it as is, relishing every bite of its magnificent flavor, waving my asparagus like a baton, conducting in a glorious spring.
Those are my tips. Here’s hoping they help.
A reminder for all attending that the first meeting of THE COOKBOOK CLUB is Saturday, March 9th at 6 pm Central Time. We are reviewing Edna Lewis’ IN PURSUIT OF FLAVOR and talking about a recipe we chose to make from the book. Feel free to join the conversation via The Simmering Chef’s Facebook page. Below are the items I decided to make: sautéed bananas and cheese custard. I’ll talk about them at the meetup. See you there!
As always, fail brilliantly and eat well. Thank you for listening.
This is Janet, The Simmering Chef
Today’s podcast is brought to you from the Atelier Rorschach Culinary Studios in beautiful College Park. Music is “The Open Field From My Childhood” by Dexter Britain. Content is all my fault. Feel free to complain to the management.
Spring Green