The first asparagus we see in the shops is "fairly skinny and a little bit desperate looking" but right now it's as good as it's going to get, says Julie Buiso.
She shares a delicious, filling and cheap asparagus pasta here.
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Julie tells Jesse Mulligan that she likes to use "the little skinny jobs" in a frittata.
"You cannot make a good asparagus frittata with really plump large asparagus, 'cause they'll split the frittata. Those little skinny ones are perfect cause you give them a quick blanch … they're so skinny that they'll sort of swirl around the pan - they look really great.
"You used to get bunches that contained some skinny ones some medium and some big ones, which is stupid cause they won't cook at the same time. Now most places you'll find a bunch is pretty well even sized asparagus."
The plumper spears are good for barbecuing:
"Toss them with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, a bit of lemon zest, and then wrap some prosciutto or very thin bacon around the asparagus. Enclose a mint leaf as well and then barbecue. There's something really extraordinary that happens with the saltiness of that bacon or prosciutto, the mint and the lemon."
Some people snap their asparagus - it will snap off around the point where it starts to get fibrous - but then you end up with shaggy ends, Julie says. She prefers to trim.
To keep your asparagus crispy, you can sit the butt ends in a cup of water with an unsealed plastic bag on top but Julie's prefered preservation method is wrapping damp paper towels around the butt ends, placing them into an unsealed bag and then into crisper.
Julie doesn't eat much pasta these days, but every so often gets a hankering for a dish like this Pasta with Asparagus and Fried Crumbs
Her tips:
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Use a well-structured bread like sourdough to make the breadcrumbs
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Don't cut back on the full ½ cup of oil in the recipe or your pasta will stick together.
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Cook the asparagus till al dente (about seven minutes depending on thickness): "If they're too hard you'll end up eating all the pasta and you'll still be crunching on hard asparagus"
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She recommends cutting the asparagus into the same length as the pasta.
- The pasta should be cooked in water "as salty as the Mediterranean" - most of which will go down the sink: "Cook pasta without enough salt in the water and it will be bland."
