Got Asparagus? Try Shaving It
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In nearly every corner of the country, asparagus – the green and white spears of spring – is the ‘it’ veg of the moment, and cooks of all shapes and aptitudes are scrambling to come up with all kinds of ways to enjoy every last morsel.
A few weeks ago at a seasonally-inspired Italian restaurant in Portland, Ore., a group of us ordered a plate of shaved asparagus for the table. It would be a first for me, and in my mind’s eye, I tried to visualize its look and feel on the tongue.
Nothing I had cooked up in my mind came even close to the plate of raw aspara-curls that arrived, thin as a whisper, delicate, crisp, yet packed with spring-earthen flavor. Until this moment, I had exclusively experienced asparagus cooked, and I wondered why I had waited so long to enjoy asparagus-in-the-raw.
We lapped up every emerald green speck, yearning for more. Back home, I was determined to try my hand at aspara-shaving, and coincidentally hit pay dirt while paging through Mario Batali’s new book, “Molto Gusto.”
The technique is hardly fancy; all you need is a vegetable peeler to run along the length of the asparagus spear to get those whisper-thin aspara-chards. It’s meditative, hand-generated work, much like peeling carrots or shucking corn, and the results are sublime.
Give this trick a whirl today. You may never turn the heat on asparagus again.
Shaved Asparagus with Parmigiano-Reggiano
Adapted from “Molto Gusto” by Mario Batali
Ingredients
1 pound medium asparagus, tough ends snapped off
1 1/2 ounces (about 3 tablespoons) Parmigiano-Reggiano, coarsely grated
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon warm water
1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil
Maldon or other flaky sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste
Method
With a vegetable peeler (or mandoline), shave the asparagus as if you were peeling it. You’ll end up with long, thin curls.
Place the cheese in a medium bowl. Whisk in lemon juice and water. Then whisk in the oil, resulting in a cheese-heavy emulsion. Stir in the asparagus, tossing gently to coat.
Season with the salt and pepper to taste.
Makes 3 side-dish servings. (Amounts can be doubled).
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Wow, Kim, this looks fabulous.
I am going to be planting an asparagus bed here, I hope soon, although the “spring” weather has not been very cooperative. (We had five inches of snow last week.) But, it will be 2012 or 2013 before I can actually harvest any homegrown asparagus.
Of course, I will be substituting my favorite Locatelli pecorino Romano for the parm. I wonder how the texture would be if you shaved the cheese as well as the asparagus.
We are in the process of constructing our Garden Fortress – gopher-proof, bunny-proof, squirrel-proof, deer-proof, bird-proof. We are going to have raised beds for all the annual stuff, plus a planter of strawberries – one more perennial that will take a couple of years to bear. Also planning to do herbs in pots that we can bring inside once the weather becomes too cold.
How ’bout some salad dressing recipes soon?
Thanks,
Linda
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This sounds like a lot of fun and perfect spring appetizer. I picked up some asparagus at the Courthouse farmer’s market yesterday and will give it a go. It seems a bit odd to me that one would try to shave the heads. So, I think I’ll snap those off, parboil them and use them as a garnish for the main dish. This should serve as a nice accompaniment to a risotto I plan to make with pancetta, tomatoes, and peas. Sadly, no peas at the market yet, so I’ll go with the freezer case.
BB
A follow-up. Technique was a bit of a challenge with this one. Holding a stalk of asparagus in one hand and a vegetable peeler in the other is a recipe for shaved finger. I eventually worked out a method where I put the stalk on a cutting board and shaved from the top down. The bottom bit wasn’t fully shaved, so I julienned it.
I tossed the shaved asparagus with a bit of olive oil and a flavored balsamic (blueberry–it worked) and mixed with some grated parmesan. The shaved bits of asparagus stack nicely to create a lovely presentation. A few shavings of parmesan and a bit of freshly ground pepper and I had a lively spring app.
BB