Recipe: Asparagus & Pasta in a White Wine Pine Nut Sauce

I tend to find that the deeper my knowledge of an ingredient the greater the pleasure I get from cooking it.

I know, I should probably get a proper hobby rather than just bothering vegetables, but I find that, sometimes, I have become so familiar with an ingredient I have stopped really seeing it and that thinking of it as a plant helps me find fresh eyes.  Sadly, this doesn’t make me much fun to live with and, since Helen is sick of hearing about it, I’m going to tell you all instead.  

Look at asparagus, it’s a fairly seasonal creature, we tend to think of it as the first of the real spring vegetables, a herald of longer days and bird song in the morning.  In reality we can, like almost everything else, buy it all year round, but there is something about it that makes most diners respect its season in a way they don’t with almost all other veg.  Find peas on the menu in November and you may cock an eyebrow but otherwise choose to look the other way; find asparagus on a menu in July and you are composing a strongly worded email in your mind before you’ve even ordered.  Perhaps it’s because asparagus is, quite literally, a shoot of the spring. It is the tender first emerging of a plant from the lily family. Mature it grows 7 feet tall, comprises fern like photosynthetic branches and has vibrant red berries, google it, it’s amazing.  The dart-like spears really are the first shoots of the year and in this way it still connects us, however tenuously, to the cycle of the seasons.

It is also a massive pain to farm.  It is a perennial so you need to give your field over to it all year, every year, for up to 20 years.  It takes up to 2 years before it is strong enough for you to crop it so you have a profitless field for all that time and then, to add insult to injury, the spears don’t all appear together so you have to be constantly wandering the field to pick them by hand.  It is known as an expensive luxury but the real mystery is not why it costs so much but rather why it doesn’t cost more.

Culinarily it is also tricky and really requires that you look at the vegetable in front of you rather than just simply cooking it “like asparagus”. Once picked it loses its sugars faster than any other vegetable.  Fresh from the field they are juicy and noticeably sweet, once picked the spears keep growing, but, detached from the rhizome’s store of fuel they consume their own sugars and deteriorate rapidly, especially in the first 24 hours.  What you are left with is still a delicious vegetable, but it is more herbaceous and sulphurous in character. Think of fresh asparagus like fresh sweet peas, with a touch of grass and the older spears more like cabbage. You will also notice, as the season goes on that the spears are less sweet and woodier.  This is because the rhizome is exhausting its energy stores and running dry, the farmer will now need to let the last shoots grow throughout the summer to recharge the stores for the next year.  

You are unlikely to come across very fresh asparagus very often, unless you grow it yourself or you have a farm close to you.  If you are given fresh asparagus you are morally obliged to give it the merest cooking, if at all. If it is early in the season just pick it, wash it and eat it.  A little later you may need to give it a quick blanch or steam but not much else. Once the spears begin to develop woody ends you will need to remove them by simply flexing the base of the spear, it will conveniently snap at the most appropriate place.  Later again in the season you will need to begin peeling your spears, to remove a fibrous woody outer layer. There is no ‘right way’ to prepare it, you have to work with what is on the chopping board in front of you, it is one of the pleasures of cookery, you must adapt to nature, not demand it does what you tell it.  

VERY YOUNG SPEARS

If your spears are very young and tender then steaming them lightly is ideal.  Just dress them with a pinch of salt, a squeeze of lemon or drop of olive oil and they are life changing.

SPEARS THAT ARE TENDER  BUT PROBABLY AT LEAST A FEW DAYS OLD 

If it is fairly young and tender, without a woody stalk, then blanching it and then dressing it is often enough.  Like other tender green vegetables, especially peas and beans, both in pod and out, a simple boil in some salted water is sufficient to bring out their natural sweetness.  You need do little else to them. There is, however, a correct way to blanch your greens and there are good reasons for it. This goes for anything green, be it peas, leaves or herbs, do it like this, every time. 

You need to use a lot of water, at least 4 litres for a small bunch.  The reason for this is simple, you want to cook your greens as fast as possible, you don’t want to stew them.  There has to be enough water in the pan that when you add your greens the water doesn’t stop boiling. There is science to this, but this email is long enough already.  If the water stops boiling then it didn’t have enough, try with more next time.  

Add salt and lots of it.  Chef lore dictates that this raises the boiling temperature of the water thus cooking the greens faster, which is of course, complete hokum.  Sufficient salt will raise the boiling temperature by a fraction but enough to make a difference would also give you a heart attack, and I’m not talking metaphorically.  The real reason you season your water is to season your greens, thus making them delicious. You need to add 1.5% salt to your water, so for 4 ltrs you need 60g of salt.

You know when the asparagus is ready because it goes a vibrant green in the water, especially if you have peeled it.  At this point you need to move fast.  

Chill them in ice.  Once your greens are cooked you need to remove them, ideally with a spider or slotted spoon and chill them fast.  It is best to get the cold water ready before you start cooking the greens. If they are left to cool slowly the chlorophyll begins to break down and lose their vibrancy, if you are planning to keep them longer than a few hours then they will turn grey or yellow.  Having a BIG pot of ice cold water will ensure that they cool down in a matter of seconds. The same rule applies as for boiling but in reverse, there needs to be enough water that the asparagus doesn’t noticeably raise the temperature.  

OLD OR WOODY SPEARS 

If your asparagus is either late season or a little past its finest then you are best treating it like cabbage and cooking the %$^& out of it.  Seriously, if you have cabbage, or asparagus, just heat a pan to smoking, add the merest touch of oil and cook it until its almost burnt. Break out the barbeque and do likewise.  Make sure you remove any woody parts but otherwise go wild. Once cooked, cover it in olive oil and season it well with salt, pepper and other big flavours, it’s delicious. 

Asparagus and Pasta in a White Wine Pine Nut Sauce

This is a fairly straightforward recipe.  I would say make your own pasta, but, realistically I’ve taken enough of your day already, so let’s assume you’re a normal human and you’re happy to use a good quality store bought dried pasta.  Ideally make sure it’s bronze die and slow dried, but practically, given the current pasta stocks in supermarkets, I just hope it’s not dinosaur shaped. Cook the sauce, pasta and asparagus separately.  Look at your asparagus carefully and make sure you cook it as is best, not for how you wish it was. This recipe is fairly neutral, how you cook your asparagus will determine how the whole thing turns out.  You can make the sauce up to 3 days ahead but best to cook the pasta and asparagus when you need them. If you are big pot blanching your asparagus then you can use the asparagus water for the pasta (just don’t tell the Acorn chefs I said that.)

Pine Nut White Wine Sauce - Serves 4

Ingredients

• 100g Pine Nuts
• 180g Water
• Olive Oil
• 2 Shallots/ 1 Onion
• 175g White Wine
• 1 Bay Leaf
• Salt and Cayenne

Method

1. Remembering last week’s comments about nuts, choose how you want this to taste, I prefer them untoasted for this, but it’s your dinner, just beware this can be overwhelming if too strongly flavoured.  

2. Blend the pine nuts and water together in a blender until completely smooth, without any texture at all.  

3. Finely dice the shallots and fry them in the olive oil until just soft. 

4. Add the wine and bay leaf and reduce by about 2/3 – The more you reduce it, the richer it will be but the less it will taste of wine.  If it’s too winey it will be unpleasant but once you’ve cooked off the raw wine flavour it’s really about how rich you want it. Between 2/3 and ¾ is the sweet spot for me.  

5. Once the wine has reduced as far as you want it, add the pine nut and water mix and cook gently until it has thickened and the texture of pine nuts has cooked off.  

6. Season to taste with salt and the merest hint of cayenne.  

To serve:

A bunch of asparagus per 2 people, prepared as is best.  Cut it into pieces approximately the same size as your pasta, unless its spaghetti or other long pasta then cut them very small. 

Precooked pasta, cooked using the salt principles from big pot blanching above and then rinsed under cold water, ensuring it doesn’t stick together.

A handful of spinach or wild garlic per person

The sauce recipe from above

Black pepper

A lemon for zest

Some pine nuts, roasted if you fancy

Method

1. Heat the sauce in a medium pan and add the pasta and ¾ of the asparagus.

2. Heat it gently to warm the pasta through and thicken it all up and then add the spinach leaves.

3. Stir until they wilt and then split the mix between pasta bowls.

4. Scatter the remaining asparagus over the top, add a generous amount of black pepper and then grated lemon. 

5. Serve whilst still hot. 

Make sure you check out Acorn Cookery School Online to take a look at more of their wonderfully delicious recipes!