Asparagus Pesto

So after I made all that pickled asparagus, trimmed down to fit in pint jars, I was faced with a gallon bag of asparagus ends that I was too stubborn to throw out feed to the worms. Some of them were woody and inedible, but there was an inch or two on each that was perfectly good, if I could only figure out how to use it.

The very next day in the New York Times (kismet! fate! serendipity!), Mark Bittman's Minimalist column suggested asparagus pesto. It turned out to be an absolutely perfect way to use up not-so-pretty bits and bobs of asparagus. We ate it that first day as a sauce for seared scallops, but the next day I used it on another leftovers pizza and it really shone: the garlic mellowed out and the asparagus flavor deepened in the heat of the oven. We had half an onion in the fridge, so I sliced that very thinly and sprinkled it on top. We also had an open package of turkey bacon, so I cooked up a couple of strips until they were almost done, then sliced those up and layered them in with the onion. Ten minutes or so in a super hot oven and dinner was ready to go.

Asparagus Pesto
adapted to use what I had from the New York Times

the end pieces of four bunches of asparagus, woody ends removed (or one bunch of asparagus, woody ends removed, cut in 1-2 inch lengths)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
a handful of pine nuts (about 1/4 cup)
3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan (I bet pecorino romano would be good in this, too)
1/4-1/2 cup olive oil
zest and juice of half a lemon
freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the asparagus until tender, but not mushy, 5-8 minutes. Drain, reserving some cooking liquid.

Put the pine nuts and garlic in a food processor and pulse to combine and chop the nuts. Add asparagus, cheese, and lemon zest, and pulse to start the process. Add the lemon juice and a few tablespoons of olive oil, pulse a few times again and taste the pesto. It will probably need more olive oil, add it now and pulse again. Add some black pepper, a few turns of the grinder, and (wait for it!) pulse again. If the pesto still seems dry, add olive oil or some of the reserved cooking liquid. Continue in this manner, tasting and adding oil or pepper (or lemon juice?) until you reach the consistency and flavor you like.

Use as a sauce for fish or pasta, or on pizza. Asparagus pesto keeps for a day or two in the fridge.

Pickled Asparagus

Do not be frightened of the giant jar full of spices. This is my pickling spice blend. Yes,  you can buy it at the store in a tiny 1.5 ounce bottle labeled "Pickling Spices" with McCormick on the label for $3.99. But then you might end up with a blend you don't like. (McCormick uses way too much cinnamon and clove for my tastes; I do not want pickles that taste like Christmas.) So I mixed up a jar of my own. The recipe is down below, and though a few of these things were already in my spice drawer, the majority were purchased for about $14 in bulk baggies at my favorite spice shop, and I have tons leftover. Which is to say my pint was way cheaper than $4 per ounce and a half. 





Yes, I can hear you out there, asking what in the sam hill am I going to use all that pickling spice for? Do not despair my friends, for you can pickle just about any vegetable (and some fruits, too!). And you don't have to have a giant pot full of boiling water or deal with funny shaped tongs or funnels or any of that nonsense if you don't want to. Personally, I want to, because water-bath-processed pickles can keep for about a year on the shelf, which means I can eat these pickled asparagus in November when I'm just starting to get bummed out by the cold, and get a tangy reminder of what spring tastes like. 





I followed the pickled asparagus recipe over on Food in Jars for my shelf-stable pickles, except I skipped the lemon slice and used one dried red chile in each jar instead of adding additional red pepper flakes to the brine. The spears are quite spicy, but that's how I wanted them. Below I've written out the method for the first small batch I made- refrigerator pickles that will keep for a few weeks, getting more pickley each day. It's a good place to start if you've never made pickles before.





And once you do have spicy, sour, puckery pickled asparagus at your disposal, you can make this lovely composed salad, adapted (but not much) from Eugenia Bone's Well Preserved. A few spears of pickled asparagus, a sliced hardboiled egg, pepper, olive oil, and a bit of flakey salt. It's a very elegant (and delicious!) way to enjoy your pickles. Or you can just eat them straight out of the jar, standing in front of the open fridge when you get home from work... I won't tell.


What's the weirdest thing you've ever pickled?


Refrigerator Asparagus Pickles
You can use any jar you like for this, just trim the asparagus to fit, making sure the tips won't stick up above the brine level in the jar. If you plan to process these, you should double this brine and use 4 bunches of asparagus in 3 pint jars... or use Marisa's recipe. 


1 to 1 1/2 bunches asparagus, trimmed to fit your jar
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tablespoon kosher salt (make sure your salt contains only salt, no sulfites or anti-caking agents - these do weird things to pickles. Diamond brand is great.)
2 Tablespoons pickling spice (recipe below)
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes or 1 whole small dried chili pepper
1 clove garlic, peeled


Blanch the asparagus for about 15 seconds in a large pan of boiling water, then transfer it immediately to a bowl of ice water. Drain, then pack the asparagus into the jar, tips up or down (I alternated to make more spears fit in the jar). Tuck the chili pepper, if using, and the garlic clove in amongst the spears. 


Bring the vinegar, water, salt, pickling spice and red pepper flakes (if using) just to a boil in a small saucepan, remove from heat, and pour over the asparagus in the jar. Put the lid on the jar, and let it cool for a few hours on the counter before refrigerating. 


Let the asparagus stew in the brine for a couple of days before eating. Mine were pickly enough for me after 2 days.


Pickling Spice Blend
Adapted from all over the dang internet, and adjusted to fit my tastes. Which is to say, no cinnamon. I've seen recipes using cardamom, and I added the celery seed because I like it. Fiddle around with the mix until you find something you like, just make sure you write it down once you find it!

1/4 cup mustard seeds
1/4 cup dill seeds
1/4 cup coriander seeds
3-4 T red pepper flakes
2 T crushed bay leaves
2 T peppercorns
1 T celery seed
1 T allspice
1 T cloves
1 T ginger flakes* 

Stick this in a jar. Shake it up. Make pickles. 

*Adam brought home this odd flakey ginger from the spice shop, and I thought it was pretty perfect for a pickling blend. Ground ginger would be fine too, just use less. I also dumped in the last tablespoon or so of McCormick's blend, but that's just because I wanted the jar for something else. 

Spring Salmon with Peas and Asparagus

The weather here in Boston has been so darn springy lately (78 and sunny for the last week!) that green vegetables are the only thing I want to eat. Add in a trip to Wilson Farms in Lexington where I was able to get asparagus so local I could feasibly ride a bike to where it grows, and ta-da! More asparagus, right after I told you about my old standby pasta and asparagus. And you know what? I've got another asparagus recipe on deck. I know it's a little bit crazy, but it's so GOOD this time of year; asparagus in November is not the same at all. I will gorge myself now instead of eating crappy spears in six months.

I blanched a couple of bunches for another project (aforementioned on deck asparagus recipe) but only ended up using about a bunch and a half. Just bring a pan of water to a boil, add the asparagus (woody ends snapped off), and cook for 15-60 seconds. Fifteen seconds is enough if it's pencil thin and you like it crunchy, a full minute is good if you want it more cooked. The big thick stalks will need to cook for longer to become tender. Then remove the asparagus with tongs or a slotted spoon and put it directly into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. You can do this a couple days in advance if you want, and keep the cooked asparagus in the fridge.

You could use frozen peas if you wanted to, but freshly shelled English peas (also called shelling peas or garden peas) are a real treat and not THAT much work. Snap off the blossom end of the pea, and "unzip" it by pulling off the string along the seam. Open the pod, and slide your fingers down the inside to remove the peas. Do this over a bowl, because peas are very bouncy. Enlist a helper and you can get through a pound or two in a flash. Alone, it only took me about 8 minutes to shell a pound.

Update! The latest Spilled Milk podcast is about peas, and it is hilarious. Go listen.
Spring Salmon with Peas and Asparagus
Serves 2, but easily doubled. Buy more shelling peas than you think you will need, because a pound of pea pods yields scarcely a cup of actual peas.

2 4-6 ounce salmon filets (preferably wild-caught sockeye), about an inch thick in the center
1 cup (ish) freshly shelled English peas
1/2 bunch pencil thin asparagus, blanched (see above)
Butter
Salt and Pepper
about a teaspoon chopped chives for garnish

Salt and pepper the flesh side of the salmon pieces (it's easy enough to remove the skin once the salmon is cooked, so for simple preparations like this I just leave it on during cooking). Heat a tablespoon of butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until it melts and foams, then add the the salmon, skin side up. Allow to cook without moving for about 3 minutes, until you can see that it is approximately half way cooked - take a peek at the side, it will be starting to get opaque.

Flip the salmon over. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, until the sides are just opaque all the way through. The center will be a touch under cooked, but it's going to rest for a couple of minutes so it will carry over until it's just done. Also, cooking pricey wild caught salmon until it's dry as a bone is a crime. Remove the salmon to a plate and cover very loosely with aluminum foil.

Don't clean the pan, just add another tablespoon of butter, let it melt, then add the peas and asparagus. The peas will cook in less than a minute - they'll still be sort of al dente, but mushy peas are gross. You're just warming up the asparagus. Salt and pepper the vegetables and when they are warm and the peas are cooked to your liking, remove to two plates. If there are any accumulated juices in the pan, pour these over the veg, then add a piece of salmon to each plate. Sprinkle chopped chives over if you want to make it pretty.

Pasta with asparagus, bresaola and smoked gouda

Aaah, asparagus. Is there any more longed for harbinger of spring? I made pasta with asparagus last year, but I went slightly heavier this year - no pea shoots and lettuce, this time we're using smoked cheese and cured beef! Mmmm, charcuterie...





This is a riff on a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis that I used to make all. the. time. I even suggested it to an old house mate as a simple and delicious meal to impress a date. From what I remember, he was impressed. I, however was NOT impressed when she left the resulting dishes in the sink for three days, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, I couldn't find smoked mozzarella at the store, so I used smoked gouda. Mozzarella is meltier, but gouda worked fine. For the sake of pork avoidance, I used bresaola, a cured beef salumi instead of prosciutto. It's not the same; bresaola is distinctly beefy, but it filled the salty fatty meaty hole left by prosciutto.



I got the bresaola at Dave's Fresh Pasta right in Davis Square, which is also where I picked up this, uh, fresh pasta. This made an obscene amount of food, much more than we needed. When I bought the fresh pasta, the woman at the shop suggested 1 1/3 pounds for 4 people (I wanted dinner for two + leftovers), but we got 7 (admittedly not enormous) servings out of that much pasta. It was good enough for us to eat for a few days later, but it certainly was not as good reheated as freshly cooked. If you do use that much pasta, use two bunches of asparagus and a bit more cheese.



Pasta with Asparagus, Bresaola and Smoked Gouda
I originally found this recipe in one of Giada's cookbooks and she suggests you make it with penne or ziti to mimic the shape of the asparagus. I think it's very good with penne, but I liked it with fresh pasta quite a bit. She would also have you saute some minced garlic in olive oil and toss the whole mess in that pan, but I skipped garlic and drizzled olive oil on at the end. If you have fresh basil or parsley on hand (I didn't), a tablespoon or two of slivered herbs works very well, toss it with the pasta just before serving.

1/2-3/4 pound fresh pasta (I used a variety with black pepper in the dough)
1 bunch asparagus, woody ends removed, cut into 1 1/2 inch long pieces
scant 1/4 lb bresaola (or prosciutto) cut into strips
3 oz smoked gouda (or smoked mozzarella), cut in small (1/4 inch) cubes
olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the fresh pasta, then 1 minute later add the asparagus pieces. When fresh pasta is cooked through (taste to check, it should only take another two or three minutes after you add the asparagus), and the asparagus is crisp-tender, reserve a cup of the cooking water, then drain pasta and asparagus.

Return to pot, add strips of bresaola and cubed cheese, toss with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste (I used 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and 8-9 grinds black pepper). Remember that the meat is quite salty, and if you've salted your pasta cooking water well you shouldn't need much salt at this point. Taste, add more salt or pepper if necessary or pasta cooking water if it seems dry, then serve.

Spring Pasta, and a Small Request

Well, friends, it's here! Memorial Day weekend! The start of SUMMER! Here in Boston it's supposed to be gorgeous: mid seventies, sunny, maybe a few showers on Sunday morning, but really a lovely long weekend. I am especially excited to have Monday off because it means the workweek will only be two and a half days long for me next week! That's right, friends, v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n starts on Thursday. Adam and I are taking off to the Pacific Northwest.

So while you look at pictures of the "living lettuce" and asparagus and the tasty pasta they went into, can I ask you a small favor? Can you help a girl out with travel planning? We'll be spending four days in Portland, OR and five in Seattle, WA, and I want to know: what should we not miss? According to Jeanette I have to try the Hedge House Pub's signature salad in Portland, and my mom says I should check out the library in Seattle. I want to drink the local IPAs, and order the pickle plate at Boat Street Cafe. Other plans include drinking boatloads of coffee, and Adam (excellent activities coordinator that he is) snagged us tickets to see Anthony Bourdain's lecture/talk/book promotion event at the Keller Auditorium. Please (please?) leave your suggestions in the comments. I would really love to hear them.

And while we're on the topic of suggestions, might I suggest you give this spring-on-a-plate pasta dish a try? Really, I mean, asparagus, pea shoots, LETTUCE? It's crunchy and delicious and good warm or cold. You could even take it with you to a barbecue this weekend!

Spring Pasta
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for drizzling
handful of spring onions or green onions (dark green parts discarded); white parts cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices, pale green parts cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1 small minced shallot
Coarse kosher salt
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 pound asparagus, cut crosswise into 3/4-inch pieces
a couple of handfuls of pea shoots, (or 2 cups fresh peas, cooked briefly with the asparagus)3/4 pound campanelle (trumpet-shaped pasta) or medium (about 1-inch) shell-shaped pasta
most of a head of butter lettuce or Boston lettuce, cored, leaves cut into 3/4-inch-wide slices
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for sprinkling
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
4 oz thinly sliced prosciutto, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide strips

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, you'll need it in a minute.

Melt butter with 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and shallot. Sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper. Sauté until tender (but not brown), about 8 minutes. Add wine; increase heat to medium-high and simmer until liquid is reduced to glaze, about 3 minutes. Add broth and bring to simmer; set aside.

Cook asparagus in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, 2 to 4 minutes, depending on thickness of asparagus, I usually put the stalks in first and the quicker-cooking tips a minute or two later. Using skimmer or slotted spoon, transfer the asparagus to large bowl of ice water and return the water to a boil.

Cook pasta until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking liquid. Meanwhile, reheat onion mixture. Add lettuce and stir just until wilted, about 1 minute. Add drained asparagus and peas; stir until heated through. Add pasta, Parmesan cheese, and parsley to skillet with vegetables; toss, adding reserved pasta cooking liquid by 1/4 cupfuls if dry. Season with salt and pepper.

Transfer pasta to large shallow bowl. Sprinkle prosciutto over; drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese.