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Asparagus

Roasted asparagus cooked in a paper bag with water and salt.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim and clean the asparagus.

  2. Tie the asparagus and place it in a paper bag.

  3. Add ¼ cup of water and ¼ teaspoon of salt to the bag.

Cook

  1. Seal the bag and place it on the grid in the oven.

  2. Cook for 35 to 45 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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
The main vegetable; it softens and becomes tender as it steams in the sealed bag.

The step that matters

Cook for 35 to 45 minutes in the sealed bag. The sealed bag traps steam so the asparagus cooks gently and evenly. Cooking too long past the range turns the spears soft, limp and dull in colour, so checking for tenderness near the start of the window helps.

“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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