The asparagus binge continues. Last week, lacking any other ideas, I took some of the stale bread
from our dinner party, and then stopped by the farmer's market to get asparagus and (again!) Capricious
aged goat cheese. I also brought in some olive oil and salt, figuring I could just make a little dipping
platter.
Which is exactly what I did. I toasted the bread cubes, sliced up the cheese, and steamed the asparagus.
Then I set out a bowl of olive oil, mixed in some salt, and just spent my lunch plunging my bread
and assorted other items into the oil. $1.50 for the asparagus, $5 for the cheese.
A couple days later, I brought in the rest of the asparagus, the rest of the cheese, and reheated
the tamale I also bought at the farmer's market. $2 for that lunch, the cost of the tamale.
Okay, so I'm definitely up on asparagus. But here's the thing. You know how you always lop off the
woody stems of the asparagus before you cook them? Doesn't that seem like a waste? So I've been
poking around looking for uses for those. Braising was the obvious choice, the time-honored technique
for softening up tough things. But the things that I've turned up (now I see asparagus stem recipes
everywhere) are more on the line of soup, kindred spirits to cream of asparagus. So I've started
saving stems, storing them in the freezer next to the chicken parts and fish heads (Melissa suggests
I make stock sooner rather than later).
Ah, and I made use of my pickled lemons. The ones that I made quickly when I realized I had a perfect
"quick pickle" brine leftover from cooking a relish, with only a lemon on hand to immerse into it.
Actually, I managed to use both the brine and the lemons. The brine, primarily vinegar and salt,
I used as the base for a beurre blanc (which did not need to be seasoned as a result) which I put
onto some striped bass the other night. It worked great, adding a nice complexity to the sauce
without imposing an oppressive lemoniness to the sauce. The lemons I mixed into a goat cheese mousse
which I made to go with a vegetable terrine I made for a potluck at work. That didn't add as much
flavor as I would have liked, but it definitely had an effect.
posted by Derrick at 9:45 PM
