Cooking up fresh Spring produce

With the local Farmer’s market reopening, it’s time to search for some great spring produce. Among the fruit offerings for spring are strawberries, apricot, and cherries. From the vegetable offerings, you have peas, radishes, artichokes, spinach, and kale among others. Today, I want to focus on one that’s popular in the spring with a very short growing season, asparagus.

The growing season for asparagus runs from April through June. They are not grown here in Arkansas. They are mostly grown in Michigan, California, and Washington state. Today, I am featuring two recipes. The first one is a recipe from my past, Asparagus Soup. The second one is from one of the popular French Quarter restaurants, Asparagus Ellen. Once back from the store with your asparagus, Let’s head to the kitchen!

Asparagus Soup

Here’s a soup from back in my restaurant days. At Cannon’s, we only featured this soup when asparagus were in season, during the spring. The  customers always were displeased when it stopped being served, but were happy for its return.

1 lb steamed asparagus

2/3 cup flour

11/2 quarts + 2/3 cup chicken stock

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon salt

½ Teaspoon white pepper

1 stick butter

1 lb chopped onions

1 teaspoon Creole seasoning

1 pint + 1 cup heavy cream

Melt butter. Sauté onions until transparent. Add flour, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and chicken stock to pan. Reduce half way and is thickened.

Take 1 pint of stock out of the pot. Put portions of steamed asparagus in blender with enough stock to allow the blender to spin freely. Pour blended asparagus in a separate container until all asparagus is blended. Add blended asparagus and remaining stock to pot. Blend well. Add heavy cream and allow to thicken.

Asparagus Ellen

This recipe is from the old Brennan’s restaurant. This recipe can be used as a side dish or a light entree. Either way, it’s a great dish to showcase asparagus.

64 fresh asparagus spears

2 cups cold water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 pounds lump crab meat, picked over to remove any shell and cartilage

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

Mousseline Sauce (recipe below)

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Rinse asparagus spears thoroughly under cold running water, then trim stems so that spears are about 4 inches in length. Using a vegetable peeler or knife, scrape away tough skin from just below the asparagus tip to the base of stalk.

Place asparagus in a large sauté pan along with 2 cups cold water and the salt. Boil the spears gently over medium heat until tender, about 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and blot dry on paper towels. Place on a warm plate while cooking crabmeat.

Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the crabmeat and sauté for several minutes until heated through. To serve, divide the spears between eight plates. Top with 1/2 cup of crabmeat, then cover with Mousseline Sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve hot. Makes 8 servings

Mousseline Sauce

1/2 cup heavy cream

pinch of salt

pinch of white pepper

1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon seafood stock

2 cups hollandaise sauce

In a medium bowl, combine the cream, salt, and pepper. Beat with a whisk until thick enough to form a ribbon trail, then add the parsley, stock and hollandaise sauce. Fold until thoroughly blended.

I find that people usually fall into two categories when it comes to asparagus: those that love them and those that don’t. I fall into the second category. You need to experiment with different ingredients to expand your horizons. You never know when you will find something that you like because you have never tried it before. Until next time, Good Cooking! Good Eating! Good Living!