Asparagus Salad

  

I keep making this salad. It has become a metaphor for loving being in the kitchen: flavors and aromas, fresh ingredients, nourishment, anticipation, pleasant surprise. I began making it when it still seemed safe to go somewhere without social distancing or wearing a mask, and I found some of the best asparagus I’ve ever eaten at Trader Joe’s on my way back from a short vacation. It started out as a recipe fantasy in Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden, and, now that really great asparagus is in my farmer’s market, it has become a way of life.

Six Seasons is a big, bold, flavor-promoting recipe collection. It celebrates the absolute sacredness of freshness and seasonality in produce, but also boosts everything with multiple layers of enhancing flavors – sometimes lots of them, often in combinations that I’m not sure about, always at least one more that I ever thought anyone would slip in. McFadden may be a sorcerer.

 

I have to admit that I’ve been intimidated by this kind of cooking. I don’t really have simple taste, but I do have a “simple” budget and not a lot of time. I would page through this type of cookbook, dreaming and drooling, but ultimately getting a little discouraged by ingredient lists that looked hard to acquire, a little weird, or just plain exhausting.

I set aside plenty of time to work on this recipe the first time I made it. I properly sliced the raw asparagus. I combined the breadcrumbs, Parmesan, walnuts, chile, black pepper, and lemon zest. And then I sniffed the bowl. I’m not sure what made me do it, but there was no going back. There will never be any going back. The fragrance of lemon and toasted nuts, the vaporous umami of the Parmesan (I mean, who knew it was safe to smell cheese?) along with toastiness from the whole grain, homemade breadcrumbs and punches of spice from the chile and black pepper – Alchemy. A whole greater than the sum of its parts. I can’t say enough.

 

The lesson of this dish is that bold layers of big flavor, properly and appropriately applied, can even further enhance already great, fresh ingredients, creating something magically spectacular. This salad is also a full celebration of what it means to enjoy food. It’s a pleasure to make with its meditative slicing and wonderful fragrances. And it’s so incredibly, wonderfully, super-naturally delicious. This is what we food-lovers step into the kitchen for.

I’m going to keep making this salad.

Asparagus Salad with Walnuts, Breadcrumbs, and Herbs

Adapted from Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden

There’s lots of room to adjust seasonings, oil, and lemon to taste in this recipe. Taste as you go and make it your own. It is best while the breadcrumbs are still crisp, but it’s still great once they’ve softened having soaked up lemon and olive oil.

1/3 cup breadcrumbs, preferably coarse, crunchy, and whole grain

½ cup freshly shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

½ cup toasted walnuts or pecans, chopped

Grated zest of 1 lemon

½ teaspoon coarse salt, plus more to taste

About ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or more or less to taste

1 pound asparagus, tough ends removed

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, or more to taste

¼ cup fresh mint or parsley leaves, or a combination

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, or a good quality lemon-infused olive oil, plus more to taste

1. In a large bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, Parmesan, walnuts or pecans, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. Toss them together, and then STOP. Put your face over the bowl and sniff. Sniff a few more times. Inhale. That’s what you’re here for!

2. Thinly slice the asparagus on a sharp angle. Add to the mixture in the bowl.

3. Pour in the lemon juice and add the mint and/or parsley. Toss everything together. You can taste at this point for salt, spice, and lemon and adjust as you please.

4. Pour over the olive oil and toss everything together. Taste again and adjust as needed.

5. Make this dish multiple times and try out different ratios of salt, oil, lemon and herbs. Make I again and again until it is your own, or until asparagus is out of season in your area.

Makes 4-6 side-dish servings (Although I’m perfectly satisfied to have it as a main dish.)

Other recipes like this one: Fresh Peas and Mint; Brown and Wild Rice Salad with Asparagus and Pea; Apple Salad with Lime Juice, Walnuts, and Cheese

One Year Ago: Strawberry Sour Cream Pound Cake

Spring Vegetable Risotto

At least one more run with asparagus, please. It’s been such a good year for it that I’m wondering if the asparagus spears are in cahoots with the rhubarb in its plans for world domination. The important part is that I can still get asparagus in the local farmer’s market, so I can try out my dreamy idea of a Spring Vegetable Risotto.

I don’t make risotto very often, although I feel like I’m getting more proficient at the process of making it. It really doesn’t need a precise recipe if you like to be more free-wheeling in the kitchen. You just need enough broth to make your rice as tender and creamy as you like it, and an appropriate proportion of mix-ins and flavorings.

I started to get more comfortable with making risotto when I made the switch from cooking it in a deep saucepan to cooking it in a skillet. I feel like the risotto cooks more evenly, and, well, I can see it all better when its spread out in a large skillet in front of me. It also seems to cook faster this way, but I can’t say I’ve ever done a minute to minute comparison between saucepan risotto and skillet risotto.

In this version I featured blanched asparagus and peas, along with some finely chopped arugula. My home-grown arugula is at the end of it’s good run in the pot on my back patio, and is getting rather bitter, but I found it a good compliment to the sweet peas and asparagus. I flavored everything with fresh thyme, garlic, shallots, parmesan cheese, and a light, homemade vegetable broth.

It probably goes without saying that you can customize the flavors and seasonings in this recipe, using other seasonal vegetables as they become available, perhaps some blanched sugar snap peas, for example, or lots of flavorful herbs. You can also customize the texture. If you like that little almost crunchy bite of starch in the middle of Arborio rice, you can stop cooking at that point. If you like your rice softer, like I do, you can continue to add broth and keep going. If you would like it to be extra creamy, you can add extra liquid at the very end and don’t let it all get absorbed. Or, you could add extra butter or cream, or more cheese.

I gwrote down exactly how I made this particular seasonal version of risotto, so I give you a recipe rather than guidelines below. I loved the way it turned out, with the mild, creamy rice working as a good base for bright and fresh spring vegetables (although I did use frozen peas), and a soft, slightly creamy texture. The parmesan cheese is wonderful here, as is the bit of fresh thyme, and an occasional peppery bite from the arugula.

Yes, risotto takes a little time to make, but you don’t really have to attend it as meticulously as legend has it. I usually can at least put together a salad between frequent stirrings. And it seems that “frequent” is indeed the operative word when it comes to risotto stirring. It should also be the operative word with regard to making risotto, too!

Spring Vegetable Risotto

I used a homemade vegetable broth, but you could use a store-bought one that you like or chicken broth, which will add a significant chicken flavor. I prefer to use a light-colored broth for appearance, but flavor is, of course, most important.

5 cups vegetable broth

1 cup finely sliced asparagus

½ cup peas, fresh or frozen

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot

1 medium-size clove garlic, minced

½ teaspoon coarse salt, plus more to taste

1 cup risotto rice (I used Arborio)

½ cup dry white wine

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

¼ cup finely chopped arugula

½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1. In a medium-size saucepan, heat the vegetable broth to a full boil. Add the asparagus and peas. Cook until the asparagus is tender but not mushy, about 3-4 minutes. Remove the asparagus and peas and set aside. Keep the broth hot, but not boiling.

2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallot and cook until it is translucent, about 2 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook about 1 minute more.

3. Add the ½ teaspoon salt, rice, and thyme. Stir to coat the rice with the oil and cook, stirring constantly for about 1 minute. Stir in the wine and cook, stirring frequently, until almost all of the liquid has been absorbed by the rice.

4. Add about ½ cup hot broth. Cook, stirring frequently until the rice has absorbed almost all of the liquid. Continue to add the broth ½ cup at a time and stirring the rice until the liquid is absorbed until the rice is tender, but not yet mushy. You may not need all of the broth to cook the rice. The whole process will take 20-30 minutes.

5. Stir in the cooked asparagus and peas and the arugula. Stir in the parmesan and butter. Taste the risotto for seasoning and add more salt if desired.

Makes 2 large main-dish servings or 4-5 side-dish servings.

Other recipes like this one: Brown and Wild Rice Salad with Asparagus and Peas,  Baked Pasta with Cheese and Spring Vegetables, Quinoa and Spinach Casserole,

Featured Ingredient: Asparagus

This seems to be a good year for asparagus. A couple weeks ago, my mom brought me asparagus from her Michigan garden, really nice stalks from a relatively new bed in a place where growing things is always at least a little bit difficult. Even though the snows were reluctant to leave us this spring, it seemed like the asparagus was in the farmer’s market earlier than usual. There was so much of it left at the late-ish hour that I arrived last weekend, that I said to one of my favorite vendors that, well, it seems to be a good year for asparagus. He replied that it was practically growing faster than he could harvest it. Music to my ears! The Messy Apron Archives are well-equipped to handle this embarrassment of riches. This Asparagusto, if you will.

For years, Sesame Soy Asparagus with Garlic and Ginger was the first thing I would make each time I could get some asparagus in the spring, and I still love to make it. Now, however, I think this Asparagus and Pasta with Balsamic Tarragon Sauce and Bacon is my favorite, and I can’t wait to make it when the time comes.

Asparagus is great in other tossed pasta dishes too, like this Pasta with Asparagus, Snap Peas and Lemon, which can be endlessly varied depending on what you have on hand.

It’s also not to be left out of baked pasta dishes, like this Baked Pasta with Cheese and Spring Vegetables.

While asparagus is usually enjoyed in a cooked state, I happen to love it raw, finely sliced or chopped and added to salads, like this Spring Vegetable Tabbouleh. (I recently stirred some finely sliced asparagus into an otherwise classic pasta salad, too, which was very good.) It can also be blanched or steamed and chilled for use in salads, such as this Brown and Wild Rice Salad with Asparagus and Peas.

Salads and pastas don’t get all the fun, though, especially since asparagus is such a good addition to stir fried dishes. I recently made a refrigerator-cleaning stir fry with arugula from my patio garden, baby bok choy from the farmer’s market, and plenty of asparagus. There’s also this recipe: Seitan Stir Fry with Asparagus, Green Beans and Black Bean Garlic Sauce.

And finally, I love this Asparagus Flatbread with Age Gouda and Hazelnuts, the most complex recipe in this list. The combination of flavors is wonderful, a celebration of asparagus, but also a celebration of being a decent cook and food lover, if you want to spend some well-rewarded time in the kitchen.

 

Asparagus season may be fleeting, but right now, there seems to be enough of it practically at my fingertips to indulge with reckless abandon. Ok, maybe that’s a bit much, but all of the above recipes are certainly something to get excited about. There are more recipes out there to try, too (I really want to get a spring vegetable risotto featuring asparagus on my table), so I hope the asparagus keeps coming!

One year ago: Rhubarb Pudding Cake