Sparrow-grass: the best of seasonal eating?

A recipe for a new approach to asparagus from Nigel Slater, with a few tweaks

I’m not sure I’m suited to Substack. Or any other newsletter platform, for that matter. Too often when I make a dish associated with the theme of the post I want to publish, I forget to photograph it before I’ve gobbled it up. It happens over and over, this week included. I followed a Nigel Slater recipe for a new sauce for asparagus and it was demolished before I remembered my camera.

Asparagus probably doesn’t need a new recipe. It’s hard to argue that it isn’t best served simply - hot with melted butter or cold with a vinaigrette. But to my surprise, the Slater twist which pours a glamourised vinaigrette over warm spears was pretty darned good and I can say that unblushing because it wasn’t my invention.

Picked this morning. Supper tonight.

Asparagus is one of those foods that makes the very best case for eating locally and in season. If you live in England, this is the time of year when asparagus comes into its own. Of course, if you live in Peru, asparagus is local and year-round. But it’s unlikely any average Peruvian will ever eat any - it’s grown for export and for profit and it’s far too expensive for anyone whose day is spent bent over double slicing each valuable spear from its crown.

With developments in agriculture and transportation, there are very few things to eat these days which you can say for the sake of superior taste should never be available out of season. Whether you buy them in Italy or in Maine, artichokes taste the same pretty much year round. I used to grow my own on the Isle of Mull, the climate on the west coast of Scotland being little different from the region of northern France where artichokes thrive. At the time of year when they come into season, both areas are cloaked almost daily with mist or, as the Scots would have it, ‘dreich’.

My Scottish artichokes - and Scottish sun!

I expect the artichokes of California which can be bought year-round might compete well in a blind tasting against the French thistles. But racking my brain for something specifically American which is season-dependent, I could only come up with shad roe and Georgia peaches. Over to you to add to the list. Even oysters are available now in months that don’t have an R, previously the guide to their edible season. But English asparagus, along with English strawberries, reign supreme over my list of eating seasonally and locally.

Sparrow-grass, which is such a Shakespearian name for it, is an interesting species. It was once classified as part of the lily family. But through the investigations of whoever defines these things, it’s now recognised as its own genus.

Considered a diuretic for the volatile sulphur compounds it contains and which metabolise during digestion to give that familiar ammonia stench to urine, it was also thought to be an aphrodisiac. Madame de Pompadour, official 18th century mistress to Louis XV, was particularly partial to what were called ‘points d’amour’. Presumably her bathroom was suitably detached from her boudoir. Madame de Maintenon, the second wife of the Sun King, Louis XIV, great-grandfather of Louis XV, put together a book of asparagus recipes. Asparagus soup in France is often listed on menus as Soupe à la Maintenon.

Definitely not a mere chichi 20th century restaurant dish, asparagus spears appear on an Egyptian frieze of 3000 BC. Traces of asparagus were found on dishware in the Pyramid of Sakhara. Honoured guests in Ancient China would be welcomed with an asparagus footbath. Grown in the wild, Syrians, Spanish, Greeks and Romans ate it fresh and dried it for winter use. Emperor Augustus, who lived from 27 BC to 14 AD, coined the expression “Faster than cooking asparagus” to define speed. He organised a troup of elite soldiers who would run with fresh spears into the upper Alps to pack them into snow to extend their eating season.

By 1469, monasteries across Europe were growing asparagus. But it only reached England in 1538, then four years later, Germany, where, today, the fat white asparagus is so much preferred to the green that it has its own celebratory season, with festivals. European settlers brought it to North America. When William Penn advertised the benefits of emigrating to the New World, he listed asparagus among the crops that grew well in the climate.

Writing all this has reinvigorated my appetite for it. So I’m cooking it again to show you what Nigel Slater’s recipe looks like.

It’s a particularly good one if all you have access to is Peruvian or Mexican asparagus because the sauce adds an extra dimension that makes up for the considerable loss of flavour of imported asparagus. (And if you live in the British Isles, please don’t buy imported: our growers need the protection of asparagus bought as a seasonal special treat to survive.)

I’ve made a few adjustments to the recipe and method. NS calls for 7 minutes boiling time which I feel makes them mushy. I do it for 4. Check the thick part of the stem at 4, rescuing one from the boil with tongs and slicing off a bit from the bottom and chewing it. (The point-of-the-knife testing method is not helpful, I don’t think, because if your knife is sharp, it will penetrate anything.) Also, I had a third of the breadcrumbs left over. But no bad thing - pangrittata for a pasta dish at another time…

Serves 4

8g/0.28 oz tarragon leaves. I tore the leaves off 5 big sprigs of my vigorous garden plant. Make sure you have real French tarragon, not tasteless Russian (see last week’s Tabled)
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
6 tablespoons olive oil
75g/generous 5 tablespoons white breadcrumbs, preferably dryish (you can use Panko)
15g/½ oz flaked almonds (I toasted and used double that - airtight, they keep well and freeze, too)
40g/1½ tablespoons butter
As many asparagus medium spears you all want to eat - this makes a lot of sauce. 8-10 each? Why not. It’s a treat.

Well ahead, you can make the vinaigrette, leaving you relaxed. Put the tarragon leaves in a processor. Pour in the white wine vinegar, add the Dijon mustard, then the olive oil, 1 tablespoon of water, and blend to a thickish dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then set aside.

Set a dry shallow pan over a moderate heat, add the flaked almonds and toast, tossing regularly, until light brown.

Tip the almonds out on to a plate, lower the heat and add the butter to the pan. Leave it to melt, then stir in the breadcrumbs and toss regularly until they turn golden. Stir in the toasted almonds and set aside. (I didn’t. I kept both separate and scattered first the crumbs then the almonds on top.)

Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil and salt it lightly.

Cook the asparagus in the boiling water. The time will depend on the thickness of your spears. For spears of medium thickness, Nigel Slater allows about 7 minutes, testing for tenderness with the point of a knife or metal skewer. I recommending testing after 4 minutes, which is when I took them out. 7 would have been too long.

Lift the spears from the boiling water with tongs. Drain briefly on kitchen paper, then lay them on a platter. Spoon over the tarragon sauce and scatter with the crumbs and the almonds, either separately or mixed together if that’s the step you opted for 2 paragraphs back.