“Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.”–Peter Ustinov
How to cook asparagus is an essential skill for every foodie. Everyone’s favorite flowering plant, asparagus has a beautiful mild flavor, no cholesterol, is low in calories and sodium, and provides a good source of fiber, Vitamin C, potassium, and iron.
Asparagus has been part of our diet for a long time — a recipe for asparagus appears in the earliest cookbook ever found, a third century recipe collection from Rome called Apicius.
Asparagus’ distinctive flavor goes remarkably well with cuts of red meat and even with more subtle fish, and is a perfect addition to a vegetarian diet as well.
When it comes to cooking asparagus — well, that’s the part that most people get wrong. The beautiful thing about asparagus is that the best method for preparing it uses a microwave. No need for hot pans or complicated recipes. Just you, your asparagus, and your microwave. Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
- one bunch of asparagus (or as many as you want to cook)
- one tablespoon of water
- salt and pepper to taste
Asparagus bunches are gathered in groups of about 15 spears, or as many as 18 depending on the size of the spears themselves.
Wash one bunch of asparagus under cool water.
Trim the stalks of asparagus. The tip of the asparagus stalk is very tender and delicious, but at some point on the stalk the asparargus gets very tough.
I have a sneaky trick to trim off the perfect length of asparagus. Pick up one spear of asparagus and bend it until the stalk breaks. It will break naturally at the “tough point” of the stalk, leaving only the tender and delicious part.
How to Cook Asparagus
Using the “broken” asparagus as a guide, trim the rest of the spears of asparagus to the same length. This will make them neat in appearance and tender in your mouth.
Using a vegetable peeler, “peel” the skin of the asparagus so that the width is uniform with the tip. This ensure even cooking and an attractive product. You don’t HAVE to peel the asparagus, but I reccomend it.
Lay the peeled spears of asparagus no more than three dip in a microwavable dish.
Pour one tablespoon of water over the asparagus.
Cover the dish with plastic wrap. Leave one corner uncovered so that steam can escape and so the plastic wrap is easy to pull off later.
Set your microwave on high heat and cook the asparagus for two and a half minutes. If you like your asparagus more tender, add another half of a minute. DO NOT overcook the asparagus — overcooked asparagus turns mushy and changes colors and is basically inedible.
If you are going to serve the asparagus cold, you need to immediately dump the asparagus in an ice bath. If you don’t “shock” the asparagus this way, they will lose their color and perhaps their texture as well. If you don’t want to use an ice bath, dump the asparagus in a strainer and run cool water over them to stop the cooking process.
If you are going to serve the asparagus hot, get them to the table as soon as you can, otherwise “shock” them cold and reheat later, though served right out of the microwave is the best way.
To make a simple “sauce” for your asparagus, salt and pepper tham to taste, and add the juice and zest of a lemon.
Another serving suggestion — pair asparagus with Hollandaise sauce for a high-calorie companion to this low-calorie natural food.
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