Asparagus Tops, Preserved
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the asparagus
Cut off the heads of the asparagus and keep them separate.
Cut the remaining tender part into pieces the size of a large pea.
Parboil the heads for 1 minute and the tender pieces for 5 minutes.
Immerse both in cold water, then drain and dry on a napkin.
Pack and preserve
Mix the heads and tender pieces together and place them in round quart tin cans.
Cover with cold boiled water and add a pinch of salt.
Seal the cans and boil them in a water bath for 1 hour.
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
- Fresh green asparagus
- Forms the body of the preserve, providing its texture and vegetable flavour.
- Cold boiled water
- Fills the cans around the asparagus, carrying heat evenly during the water-bath processing.
The step that matters
Seal the cans and boil them in a water bath for 1 hour. Sealing and sustained heating in a water bath are what keep the sealed cans stable for storage. Undercooking or a poor seal can let spoilage organisms survive, so the seal and full processing time must be respected.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.