soupnancy

What's cooking - The ingredient:

Asparagus!

André Cormier (our local guy) had his first asparagus out on May 9^th, exceptionally early this year; normally they come after, not at the same time as the fiddleheads.. But what an exciting time the first Quebec asparagus sighting is! Just about every night since, I’ve eaten asparagus in some form (and so yes, my pee smells). My favourite way with asparagus is sautéed in a hot pan (or grilled) with olive oil, then deglazed with a good balsamic or lemon, salt and pepper. Sometimes gratinéed with a hard cheese afterwards (like Valbert, Tomme de Kamouraska, Alfred, Piave or Parm..) I also like it steamed or blanched with a bit of butter for a more ‘au naturel' taste, maybe with a poached egg and tomato.  Or in vinaigrette with EVO, lemon zest and almonds, or yet another favourite, thrown into a sauté of mushrooms at the end. Now that the green is a given, I'll be moving on to Daigneault's white asparagus this week.

Daigneault's white asparagus

More asparagus recipes from the web:

Jamie Oliver’s potato asparagus tart, Jamie Kennedy’s classic asparagus vinaigrette..http://gremolata.com/asparagus.htm

Butter braised asparagus with peas, oyster mushroom and tarragon http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/dining/071arex.html?ref=dining

Easy Asparagus with lemon and parmesan http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001146asparagus.php

Potato Asparagus frittata

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/recipe-of-the-day-potato-asparagus-frittata/

Tons of asparagus tips and recipes from the NYTimes: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/asparagus/index.html

And a couple of 'non-asparagus', but timeless recipes ..

Taking out the ‘Q’? Try Beer can chicken from America ’s Test Kitchen http://www.americastestkitchen.com/cookstv/preview/?extcode=L8EN1AE00

Also from Cooks Illustrated :

Almost no knead bread http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=4748&bdc=56976&extcode=L8EN1AF00#topOfPage

More spring recipes (for nettles, ramps, morels, asparagus..) 

http://starchefs.com/features/farm_fresh/spring/2008/html/index.shtml