Asparagus Soup

7 06 2010


Welcome back! I wish I had a fantastic story to explain why I took such a long break from blogging (my longest ever), but I don’t. The truth is much more mundane.

I. Ran. Out. Of. Time.

Life happens with three kids, a paying gig as restaurant critic for Denver Magazine, and a tummy bug that overstayed its welcome. But now things have settled down and I can share this recipe for Asparagus Soup. I meant to post it weeks ago after picking pounds of pounds of asparagus at my farm share. But better late than never. Besides, where you live, asparagus might still be rolling in. (I believe today is the last day for picking at my CSA.)

If you look up “asparagus soup” in an old cookbook, you’re sure to find a recipe calling for lots of cream. Cream soups, like cream sauces and desserts that got lit on fire, were all the rage. Now, not so much. This soup is much fresher and lighter than the old cream of asparagus soups of yore, because instead of 1 cup of cream I just finish the soup with a splash of dairy. And if you want to skip it altogether, you can, as long as you have extra broth on hand to thin the soup.

One last thought: Sometimes asparagus seems too expensive to serve to guests. One pound barely serves four adults as a side dish, but it provides a more than adequate foundation for soup. In other words, if you have to pay $5.99 at Whole Foods to buy a pound of organic asparagus, you might want to stretch it into this easy but impressive soup.

Asparagus Soup
Serves 4

1 pound asparagus
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
Dash of cream

Wash asparagus and snap off woody ends. Trim into one-inch pieces, reserving tips. Cook stems in 5 quarts of boiling salted water until tender, about 6 minutes. Remove from water with slotted spoon, run under cold water and set aside. Cook tips in same water, about 4 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon, rinse under cold water, and coarsely chop. Transfer all but tips to a food processor and puree until smooth, adding cooking water as necessary.

Melt butter in a soup pot and add onions, cooking over medium low about five minutes. Add chicken stock and asparagus puree and cook several more minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste. Add chopped asparagus tips and finish with a few tablespoons of heavy cream. Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan and slices of crusty baguette.


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Categories : In Spring, Recipes, Uncategorized

Sesame Noodles with Asparagus Tips

17 05 2009

This recipe comes from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which I use often and highly recommend.

Don’t be afraid to try it if you don’t have everything on the ingredient list. As long as you have the fundamentals (dark sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar and sesame seeds), you can make a version worth serving. Once I substituted ramen noodles for the thin Chinese egg noodles since that’s what I had on hand and it was delicious. Another time I left out the chili oil, scallions and cilantro, and used powdered ginger in place of fresh, and it was still great. Note that the recipe serves 6-8, but you can easily cut it in half.

The Marinade
1/4 cup sesame oil
3 tbsp dark sesame oil
7 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp Chinese black or balsamic vinegar
3 1/2 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp chili oil
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

The Noodles and Asparagus
Salt
2 pounds asparagus, trimmed and thinly sliced on a diagonal
1 14-ounce package thin Chinese egg noodles
10 scallions, including the firm greens, thinly sliced
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted until lightly browned

Mix the marinade ingredients together, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt and the asparagus. Cook until bright green and tender but still firm, just a few minutes. Scoop the asparagus out, rinse it under cold water and set on a towel to dry.

Pull the noodles apart with your fingers, add them to the boiling water and give them a quick stir. Boil until tender but not overly soft, tasting them often as they cook. It should take only a few minutes. Pour the noodles into a colander and immediately rinse under cold water. Shake off the excess water.

Toss the noodles with all the marinade and most of the scallions, sesame seeds and asparagus. Mound them in a bowl or on a platter, then garnish with the remaining asparagus, scallions, and sesame seeds.


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Asparagus Fatigue? Not a Chance.

11 05 2009

A week after harvesting 11 pounds of organic asparagus, I’m pleased to say that more than half of it is gone. Relieved, too, because even though we’re a family of five, I wasn’t sure we how we would fare against the mountain of spear-stuffed mason jars lurking in our fridge. Every time I opened the door, a new doubt crept in. Had we picked too much? Would my kids would set their forks down in protest?

Thankfully they didn’t, and for this I credit the vegetable’s inherent versatility. Most of us serve steamed or boiled asparagus as a simple yet elegant side dish, and so we don’t think of it as flexible. But really, asparagus is up for so much more. This tender spring veggie shines as a main course, as in the Pasta with Asparagus-Lemon Sauce that I wrote about last week. In that recipe, the stems are boiled until tender, then pureed and tossed with lemon zest, parmesan and a little cooking water in an innovative coating for the noodles.

Tonight I served grilled pork chops with sweet corn (not local but I couldn’t resist on such a summery night), plus a side salad from Farmer John’s Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables. The recipe is called Asparagus and White Bean Salad with Feta and Lemon Dressing, and it was so good when I tried it last week that I made it again for an encore. As written, the recipe calls for a half-cup of sliced radishes and 2 tbsp of thinly sliced scallions, and it is quite yummy that way. Tonight I was out of those ingredients so I substituted diced red peppers for the radishes and skipped the scallions entirely and it was equally good, especially in the eyes of the little ones.

Click here for the recipe for Asparagus and White Bean Salad with Feta and Lemon Dressing.
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Categories : In Spring, Uncategorized


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