Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut asparagus shoots to a uniform height.
Rub each shoot lightly with sandpaper or a coarse cloth to remove the outer skin.
Place trimmed shoots in a flat-bottomed vessel.
Blanch
Pour boiling water with 10% salt over the shoots to cover one-third of their length. Let sit for 3 minutes.
Add plain boiling water to cover two-thirds of the shoots. Let sit for another 3 minutes.
Cover the pan and boil vigorously for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and drain the water.
Cool and pack
Plunge the asparagus into cold water for 1 hour.
After cooling, drain the shoots.
Pack the shoots straight into jars.
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 main body of the dish, so its texture is what the blanching sets.
The step that matters
Staged blanching of the shoots. Heat must reach the thick base as well as the tips. Starting with water covering only one-third of the shoots and adding more in stages lets the base soften evenly without overcooking the tips, which otherwise turn limp and dull.
“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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