Asparagus

This technique produces a tender asparagus with all the flavor of the raw vegetable. It can be served as part of a salad to emphasize the fresh flavor or used in any recipe that calls for blanched asparagus. We like the way it emphasizes the meaty texture of the vegetable without requiring extended cooking time. The resulting asparagus will stand up to a very quick grill or sauté, achieving a tender bite while still retaining its grassy flavor and bright color.

The first time I ate asparagus the correct way was as a student in Paris in the 1960s. Whenever I had lunch with Renée and her husband, Camille Dreyfus, a doctor who was the physician to Charles de Gaulle, I was confronted with the complexities of elegant French dining. Luckily, their butler, probably having pity on me, helped me navigate the many knives and forks, finger bowls, doilies, etc. Because a huge flower arrangement usually sat at the center of their round table, I couldn’t see how the Dreyfuses ate . . . and, fortunately for me, they couldn’t see how I ate. Once, during the asparagus season, the butler served me white-asparagus spears, which I ate with my fork, cutting them as daintily as I could. To my surprise, Dr. and Madame Dreyfus, the most proper people I knew in Paris, gingerly ate the spears, one by one, with their fingers. They then washed their hands in the finger bowls. Years later, I ate dinner in Strasbourg at the home of Pierre and Martine Bloch at the start of the local asparagus season. The minute I entered their apartment, I could smell the asparagus being steamed in the kitchen. Then Martine shared her trick for cooking white asparagus: put a little sugar in the water, to bring out the flavor.

"There is no such thing as Jewish Alsatian cooking. It is Alsatian cooking,” Chef Gilbert Brenner told me over lunch at his restaurant, Wistub Brenner, with a view over the Lauch River in Colmar, a charming city in southern Alsace that has had a Jewish presence since at least the eleventh century. “Jewish cooks adapted the dietary laws to what was available here,” Monsieur Brenner told me. “France didn’t create dishes. Families created the dishes. It is the cooking of their grandparents and reatgrandparents.” Looking over the menu at Brenner’s popular restaurant, I was taken by this extraordinary leek terrine, which I later learned was put on the menu for Gilbert’s Jewish customers and friends who keep kosher or are vegetarians. During the short asparagus season in the spring, Gilbert substitutes asparagus for the leeks. The recipe is a modern version of very old savory bread puddings, like schaleths (see page 251).

Here’s a super way to use up leftover cooked green vegetables.

An appealing vegetable trio is enlivened by a wine-scented sauté.

See the accompanying menu for a pizza meal that celebrates spring.

Here’s a simple way to say “happy spring.” Do try this with goat cheese—the contrast of its slight bite and the mild flavor of asparagus is tantalizing.

I had this dish in a noodle shop in Australia. When I asked the Thai owner for the recipe, he had an odd reaction; out of nowhere this little guy pulls out a karate move and takes a swing at me. In the end, he chased me out of the kitchen with a cleaver, but not before I swiped the recipe. It was worth it. If you are not able to get your hands on kaffir lime leaves, up the lemongrass to 4 stalks. But do make the effort to try to find them in your area or look for them on the Internet; there really is no substitute for their amazing flavor.

I am a big fan of flavor on a plate that’s light and effortless. I don’t need a “balanced” dinner with starch and the whole bit; just give me stuff that tastes good. The delicate flavors of the herbs go great with the salmon and asparagus. It’s hard to believe a dish that takes only an hour has such big flavor. Cooking the salmon by the “low and slow” method keeps this fatty fish really moist.

This basic, versatile recipe can be adapted to just about any vegetable depending on what you have on hand. While the oven preheats, prepare the vegetables. Serve with oven-grilled chicken breasts and steamed rice.

Roasted asparagus spears are crisp-tender with great flavor. They can be roasted at higher temperatures as well (400° to 500°F), in which case the roasting time is short (8 to 10 minutes). If you are roasting meat or poultry at 375°F, that temperature will be fine for the asparagus, too. Don’t add the asparagus to the oven too soon or it will be overcooked.

Here’s a quick hot-roasted meal that’s as ideal for entertaining as it is for a busy weekday. All you need to add are some tossed greens and crusty bread.

For pizza lovers, here are eight varieties to choose from. The basic dough makes two pizzas. The dough is easy to mix in the food processor.

This is a different sort of frittata, not the neat golden round of well-set eggs that’s probably most familiar. Here the eggs are in the skillet for barely a minute, just long enough to gather in soft, loose folds, filled with morsels of asparagus and shreds of prosciutto. In fact, when I make this frittata or the “dragged” eggs—uova strapazzate, page 143—I leave my eggs still wet and glistening so I can mop up the plate with a crust of country bread. That’s the best part of all.

Here's a quiche recipe that goes wheat free without skimping on flavor. We call for broccoli and Cheddar cheese, but you can trade out the broccoli for asparagus tips or halved cherry tomatoes and the Cheddar for Gruyère, Swiss, or Comté.

Dried porcini give this vinaigrette a huge boost of flavor and marry beautifully with the asparagus and goat cheese for a spring-like first course. Serve this dish with sharp knives (like steak knives) so the toast and asparagus cut easily. For more seasonal recipes, download the free Gourmet Live app and stay tuned to the Gourmet Live blog for the latest updates.

Because sometimes the simplest side dishes are the best side dishes.

Shaving asparagus with a vegetable peeler transforms the texture of a raw stalk into silky strips. This revelatory technique works well with all kinds of vegetables, from carrots to zucchini.

Breakfast meets dinner! Power up with salmon's protein; stay balanced with potato's blood-pressure-regulating potassium.