Sparrow Grass -1

Asparagus is in season again – yay!

Spring is the proper time to enjoy this delicious and expensive member of the lily family. It makes your pee smell funny … but who is going to smell your pee except you? (I don’t need answers to that, thank you!)

The other day I was in Tesco and couldn’t resist buying two large bunches of fat asparagus for a fiver. Now I know that was expensive but they did weigh 2lbs.

Asparagus is one of those awkward vegetables which has tender tips and more substantial stems. As a result, the tips need very little (if any cooking) while the stems need about 5 minutes in boiling water. The absolute best way to cook them is standing up to their waists in water so that the stems are boiled and the tips just steamed.

I chose a reasonably deep pan such that there was room for the spears to stand upright in a bundle and used a couple of rings that are made for producing rosti and neat poached eggs (amongst other things). I trimmed the asparagus so that it would stand up in the pan with the lid on and pushed it into the rings, which served to hold it in bunches and stabilize them.

The bottom ends can sometimes be tough and stringy (though in this case they weren’t) but they still have a lot of flavour and certainly shouldn’t be consigned to the Green Bin – I will come to them later.

Once my spears were cooked and tender, I put 250ml of single cream (I could have used a Greek yoghourt) in a basin with four eggs, a little salt and a screw (or 12) of pepper. I added the asparagus (all but 18 spears which I reserved for garnish) and blended the lot to a delightful shade of green.

I had already prepared three 6 inch flan cases and baked them to a suitable crustiness (actually, my pastry was rather too short and had a tendency to break easily but, with care, I managed to crack only one and carefully put the pieces back together.

Once the cases were cool, I poured the creamy asparagus custard into them, garnished the tops with 6 spears each and gently returned them to the pre-heated oven at 180°C for 30 mins.

The result? Well, the custard was really a little too runny (I should have used double cream) and the garnishing spears tended to sink without trace in a couple of the flans. I should also have cooked them in a bain-marie with a covering of foil because a couple of them browned a little too much in my unequally heated fan oven.

My ideal was a firm flan with no browning or wrinkling of the top and six spears of asparagus garnishing each, so I didn't achieve that quite. Nevertheless, the result is delicious and would go well with a French or Italian salad (or any leafy salad, really), some baby potatoes and a glass of chilled Chardonnay.