That recipe does sound delicious…
Usually I just lightly steam it and drizzle with a bit of liquid honey, stir them up to coat it. Mmmm…
Usually eaten with my fingers.
Well, just don’t go around peeing on stuff!
Marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette over night, then grilled (carefully). The charred bits are the bees knees.
I don’t eat asparagus with my fingers, but that’s because I only eat with my fingers stuff that it would be messier to eat with cutlery.
At home the most common versions are (always for white asparagus, green being considered an abomination unto veggies by yon average local):
- fingersize spears, salad (green or multicolored), diced hardboiled egg, black olives; compose with salt, oil and vinegar
- tomato, diced asparagus and tuna-in-vinegar salad; compose with salt and oil
- full-size spears, composed with oil and vinegar
“compose”: we don’t make a vinaigrette and then add it to the salad, we add each ingredient to the salad and mix it up
I think eating asparagus with your fingers used to be considered good manners, but isn’t any more. Etiquette changes over time.
A simple google search will give you lots and lots of ammo to counter your friend’s objection.
At this point, I don’t think friend is quite the term I wish to use for this person.
either with goat cheese & bacon or with my fingers.
All the better. Send her the links.
Should asparagus be eaten with the fingers? Of course not, the fingers should be eaten separately!
SOMEBODY had to say it!
Either way is fine. If it’s being served as an appetizer, say wrapped in pancetta or prosciutto, or perhaps with a homemade mayonnaise to lightly dip in, then eat with fingers. If it’s part of the main meal, say with a steak and potatoes, I eat it with my knife and fork.
Either way, if it’s soggy, you’ve done something wrong.
I almost never eat asparagus whole, as a side dish. I cut it into segments and add it to a dish with other veggies, or raw in a salad.
I eat young pencil sized asparagus imported from Mexico plain steamed with butter in the microwave (cover in saran) with a fork. They are very clumsy to eat however unless, you just sort of bring them to your mouth and bite them in two… otherwise it is awkward to stuff them in your mouth bending them in on themselves. I remember in Germany the accepted protocol was to pick them up with your fingers and enjoy them that way, even if sauced… or dipping them in the sauce. Of course, their asparagus are also thumb thick and blanched white underground.
I cut the stalks into bite sized pieces and use a fork, or if it is in stir fry I use chopsticks.
Yes I know that according to the books on manners eating sauceless asparagus is ok with fingers, I do not feel like getting my fingers messy for only one food item. If it were a picnic and I was also eating fried chicken and pickles, then I might eat it with my fingers.
I was taught that the proper way to eat asparagus is without cutlery, picking them up by the cut-off end and eating from the head as far as the tough part of the stem, and then just leaving the unpleasant stub on the side of the plate. There’s really no need to be afraid of getting your fingers sticky, if they do just use your napkin.
Prepared properly there isnt a tough yucky stub.
I just played with a neat recipe but decided while it was pretty, it was somewhat wasteful in a time sense.
You use a veggie peeler to peel the asparagus into long thin strips, which are quickly blanched then chilled and dressed with a vinaigrette. Great presentation, tasty but takes freaking forever.
I think the point of keeping the tough stubs is to prevent the juice from escaping out of the asparagus during steaming. But I suppose one could cut them of before serving.
However, I agree with you on that recipe. It sounds like it wouldn’t be worth the trouble, unless you had someone to do your cooking for you.
My favorite preparation is steamed or grilled and tossed with home made vinaigrette and chopped hard boiled egg.
Considering I was trained to snap them off as the beginning of cooking them, and pretty much every single recipe I have ever used called for them to be snapped off or trimmed, I have never run into stubs on asparagus when properly cooked.
/shrug
And the fancy asparagus salad recipe is spiffy looking, just not willing to spend the time unless it is for something seriously important. Here is a piccy of it, though this blog was using in on pizza.
Fingers.