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Asparagus

Preserve asparagus by boiling, packing in jars with salt and water, and sterilizing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut all asparagus to the same length.

  2. Soak the asparagus in cold water for 30 minutes, changing the water every 10 minutes.

  3. Prepare a narrow saucepan with boiling water and add a little salt.

Blanch and cool

  1. Stand the asparagus upright in the boiling water, ensuring the heads are not covered.

  2. Cover the saucepan and boil the asparagus for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove the asparagus from the water.

  4. Pour cold water over the asparagus.

Jar and sterilize

  1. Place the asparagus in sterilized jars with the heads facing down.

  2. Add salt and water to the jars.

  3. Sterilize the jars for 100 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the crisp vegetable body of the pickle, softened only lightly by the brief boil.

The step that matters

Stand the asparagus upright with the heads uncovered. Keeping the heads out of the boiling water lets the tender tips cook gently from steam while the thicker stalks cook in the water. Covering the tips would overcook them and leave them soft.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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