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Apparently, I'm physically incapable of walking past a pile of asparagus at a farmers' market without picking up a bunch. Unlike those other spring favorites,artichokesandfava beans, asparagus don't make you de-thistle, blanch, pod, or peel them in order to access their deliciousness. In fact, in this recipe from our new#epicookbookclubpick for May,Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables,the new cookbook from vegetable savant and Ava Gene's chef Joshua McFadden, you don't evencook the asparagusat all.
Of course, as with any vegetable, eating asparagus uncooked is a move you should only attempt with primo, top-notch, AAA-grade asparagus—the kind you'll find at the start of the season. But as I just learned inSix Seasons,as long as your asparagus is crisp and juicy, it doesn't matter how thin or thick they are. Apparently asparagus can produce thin, medium, and thick spearssimultaneously.
And I didn't have to comb through dozens of pages of asparagus trivia to find that useful tidbit. Somehow, this substantial book on vegetables manages to resist the urge to deep-dive into endless detail. Instead, it features just a page of super-useful intel on the best vegetables in every season (yes, he breaks summer into three mini-seasons, bringing the total number to six).
Another asparagus revelation? Apparently, I've been trimming my spears wrong. I used to do this by picking up each spear and snapping it, which magically makes the vegetable separate exactly where the woodiness ends. ButSix Seasonsincludes this little gem about asparagus: instead of snapping the stalks one by one, just "choose one stalk from the bunch, bend it until it snaps at that sweet spot, and then line up the rest of the stalks and simply cut them at about the same point." Way faster than my usual approach, and just as effective.
Once you've scored great asparagus, McFadden helps you find zero-drama, maximum-flavor ways to prepare it, too. In hisraw asparagus salad with breadcrumbs, walnuts, and mint, he starts out by making a mixture of dried breadcrumbs, freshly grated Parmesan, finely chopped walnuts, and grated lemon zest, creating a rather brown but extremely flavorful crumb mixture to dress the asparagus.
Next, he counsels you to slice the asparagus super-thin, so the flavorings you add can permeate every single piece of the vegetable. Slicing the spears on a diagonal creates super-long, thin slices that look gorgeous and are easy to pick up with a fork.
And finally, the seasoning. Any simple vegetable dish stands or falls based on how well it's seasoned, so McFadden has you season the asparagusthree times: once with a pre-set amount of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and chile flakes, then again once you've tasted a bite or two, and then a third time after you've added olive oil and mint. All that tasting, seasoning, and re-tasting might seem fussy, except for the fact that it basically means you end up eating half the salad before you even bring it to the table. And with a spring salad this nutty, savory, grassy, and lemony, you'll hear no complaints from me.
