Kathryn and the Asparagus

Well, I sure wasn't planning on posting two blog entries today, nor was I thinking I'd post entirely about asparagus, haha. I guess I had sort of forgotten how striking white asparagus can be if you're not used to it (it's pretty much all they have here in Europe). Anyway, since it is asparagus season everywhere now, the white asparagus is out in full force here, and today I splurged and bought some from my local market. My favorite apple man had fresh asparagus, so I figured why not. Of course, it's sold by the kilo, so here is the PILE I ended up with:


I thought the story would end there, when I posted the above picture on facebook as a joke. But then the response I got was rather noteworthy. As you can see, I'm going to be cooking and eating asparagus ALL WEEK. When my aunt told me she googled it because she didn't believe it existed (haha), I figured it was time for another blog post.

Anyway, we found some recipes online that said you absolutely have to peel it, so I selected my two stalks for dinner tonight and got to work:


From there I set out to boil it but quickly realized I had a problem: the damned stalks were so big they didn't even fit in my pot, haha:


So I chopped them up and all was well. I boiled the stalks for about 10 minutes and then sauteed them in a lemon butter for another 10. I was originally going to have gnocchi for dinner but then changed my mind when I picked up the voluminous pile of asparagus, since that seemed rather overwhelming. So I switched it up and went with a soy patty. Here's the end result:


The verdict is: delicious but still a bit stringy. Perhaps I didn't peel them enough? I suppose we will know more tomorrow, since obviously I'm going to have to keep doing this all week to use up my kilo of asparagus, haha. In any case, I already knew this, but I think white asparagus is better than the green. I like the green, but the white is milder and sweeter. One website characterized it as "nutty," and I can definitely see that. It's really, really good, and even better when someone who actually knows how to make it prepares it for me, hahahaha. But by the end of the week I will have figured it out, I promise!