Growth Spurt

Spring has finally sprung here in central Virginia after a long, hard winter. With the warmer temperatures, one of my all-time favorite vegetables is in its prime. This vegetable and I have quite a few things in common. We are both tall. We are both thin. We are both good for you. And we both had a remarkable growth spurt. Height was not something I was gifted with during my earlier years. I was always a bit of a short, squat fella, perhaps more comparable to a potato or a rutabaga. That all began to change just as I prepared to leave home and embark upon my college experience. I went through my growth spurt and gained several inches over the course of a few months. Not only was this physically painful, but it wreaked havoc on my clothing. One look at my jeans and you would think I was waiting for the next big flood. The vegetable I write about today is capable of growing at a faster rate than I ever did. It can easily gain several inches in just one day. No small feat for these luscious green stalks sprouting up from the ground reaching for the heavens. Surely you’re on to me at this point. The vegetable we are discussing and eating today is none other than the mighty asparagus!

Not only are they visually stunning in their appearance, they are versatile, healthy, and darn delicious. Although there are many preparation methods for these little stalks of green, I recently came to the realization that I’m in an asparagus rut. I cook it the same way, nearly every single time. Although there’s nothing wrong with roasting asparagus in the oven at a very high temperature or steaming it until it’s a vibrant green color, I wanted to expand my horizons. I wanted to encapsulate the feeling of spring and put it on a plate. The gears in my head started to turn, which can sometimes be quite a scary thing. After some careful thought and consideration, I went outside my comfort zone and decided to create a warm asparagus salad. I drew some of my inspiration from recipes I found online, but I still managed to put that Taste Bud twist on things by adding some exciting and bold flavor profiles. With the outcome of this dish very much uncertain, I made a list, rounded up my ingredients, took a deep breath, and got down to business.

To make this warm asparagus salad, here’s what you’ll need:

1 pound of fresh asparagus
1 large shallot, or half of a red onion
1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons of chopped basil
3 pieces of diced cooked bacon
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt and pepper (to taste)

Not only is this salad easy to make, but it’s also pretty affordable during the spring, since in-season ingredients are generally cheaper. The first step is to do the asparagus snap test. Take one stalk of your fresh asparagus (don’t even think about using that slimy stuff from a can) and bend it toward the bottom of the stalk until it snaps. Wherever it naturally snaps is about how much you should trim off of your remaining asparagus spears. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll usually have to lob off around 2-3 inches. You can either discard or save this part of the asparagus for vegetable stock, since these end pieces will be quite woody and inedible. Now that you have removed the tough part of your asparagus, the remaining parts should be tender and delicious.

Get out a sharp knife and cut your asparagus into little rounds. We are going for fairly tiny pieces here. Start at the bottom of the spear and go all the way up to the tip. When you’ve chopped them all up, they should look like this:

Now it’s time to make this a warm salad. We add a little heat to the mix by placing our chopped asparagus into a pan, with a drizzle of olive oil. Put the pan on the stove over a low to medium heat. The goal here isn’t to cook the asparagus until it’s a pile of mush. We simply want to let them soften in the pan for a few minutes until they are tender, but still retain a bit of their crunch.

After only 2-3 minutes they should be perfect. Add a little bit of salt and pepper at this point. Dump the soft, but still slightly crunch asparagus into a mixing bowl.

This will serve as the base for our salad. The asparagus will be the stars of the salad, but it’s time to add the supporting flavors. Let’s work quickly, since the warm asparagus pieces will essentially act like little sponges and soak up any flavors you add at this point. First, let’s add one finely-diced large shallot. If you don’t have a shallot, you could easily substitute about half of a red onion. This will create a bright color combination that will mimic the spring colors you might see out of your own kitchen window.

Aren’t those colors just awesome? I always think about how food is going to look when it hits the plate, because we truly do eat with our eyes first. To brighten things up a bit more from visual and taste perspectives, we turn to my friend the lemon. Nothing really wakes up your taste buds more than a squirt of sour citrus. Plus, the lemon is a natural pairing with asparagus. Add the zest and juice of one large lemon. When I say the zest, I mean the yellow part of the lemon that can be removed with a grater or even a knife. Be sure not to get any of the white part beneath the zest, as it has a very bitter flavor and won’t be pleasant. The zest contains tons of natural oils and is simply bursting with flavor! Make sure you zest before you get the juice. It just won’t work out if you try to do it the other way around.

Now that you’ve got an acidic bite with your lemon, let’s balance that out with some sweet things. Add your sugar and chopped basil. Both ingredients will add a delicate sweetness, serving as a counterpart to the sour notes we just added.

Now that we have added some sweetness, let’s put in some big salty flavors. That means it’s time to get cheesy by adding your grated Parmesan cheese.

It’s no secret that I have an extreme weakness for salty things, so I don’t stop with the cheese. It’s time to bring out one of the biggest heavy hitters in the culinary arena. It’s time to summon the big guns. It’s time to bust out the bacon. Triumphantly add your diced, cooked bacon to the mixture.

Sigh. I’m in love. You know what coming next. Oh yeah, another picture of the bacon!

Finally, add your olive oil over the mixture and give everything a BIG stir. Taste for salt and pepper and add either one accordingly.

After it’s all mixed, it’s ready! Grab a plate and serve it up.

Grab a fork and dig in! It’s the perfect spring bite. The asparagus will still be warm and slightly crunchy, with a fresh, almost grassy flavor. The lemon will add a big acidic bite, while the sugar and basil will balance that out with their subtle sweetness. The bacon and cheese will deliver the salt needed to make this pure spring satisfaction.

This salad doesn’t refrigerate well, but odds are you won’t have too many leftovers. This would be the perfect accompaniment to some grilled chicken or fish. As you savor this salad, let it be a gentle reminder of spring and new beginnings. Be thankful for the vegetable that goes through a tremendous growth spurt, deftly sprouting forth from the ground, just so it can wind up on your plate. Spring and asparagus. They go hand in hand. Most importantly they go from ground to plate and then from hand to mouth.

What is your favorite way to prepare asparagus? Share your ideas with me in the comments section!

Happy eating,

The Taste Bud

So Long, Summer!

It was 3:30 in the morning. I heard the alarm clock going off in my parents’ bedroom. I knew by 3:31 my dad would be coming down the hall into my bedroom to find an 8-year old me, head buried beneath a pillow and several dinosaur-covered blankets.

“If you’re coming with me, you need to get up now,” he would say in a very firm voice.

“Ok, ok, I’m waking up,” I would mutter back, still very much half-asleep. Pulling myself away from the comfortable bed on those early summer mornings was nothing short of barbaric, but I knew that a sweet reward wasn’t too far away. As I threw on a shirt and some shorts and made my way downstairs, my dad would already be jingling his keys, signaling the beginning of our pre-dawn trek. Where could we be going so early on a July morning? The produce market of course!

Once or twice a week, my dad would make the hour-long journey to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables for a few small produce markets closer to our hometown of Burlington. The produce markets would expect their deliveries around sunrise or shortly thereafter, which is why such an early departure time was required. Somewhere along the way, my presence was requested on these visits – but what 8-year old child would willingly spend a day of his summer vacation waking up at 3:30 in the morning? He had to find a way to entice me, to make me feel like this trip would be worth my while. He did this through watermelon. Yes, watermelon.

After we had picked up the produce from the hub in Winston-Salem, he would always take the biggest, sweetest watermelon he could find and smash it open. There was no finesse here. The melon was very unceremoniously dropped in the parking lot, shattering into bite-sized pieces for us to enjoy. The sweet, juicy melon tasted so refreshing on those early summer mornings, when the heat and humidity were still hanging in the air from the previous day. With hints of sunlight on the horizon, we made fast work of the watermelon, leaving nothing but some rind and seeds behind. It was then time to get back to Burlington to deliver the goods we had picked up.

Now, I realize those mornings were about more than just slurping down watermelon in the parking lot of a produce hub in Winston-Salem. They were about spending quality time with my dad. Bonding over delicious food in such a non-conventional way is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. This experience inspired the recipe that I will now share below.

Just the other night, I found myself craving watermelon – but in more of a grown-up way. The gears in my head started turning. How could I quickly transform watermelon into something even more vibrant and flavorful without losing the integrity of the melon? With a few simple ingredients, I think I figured out the answer to my question.

I like to start this recipe with a seedless watermelon. If you’re feeling ambitious and don’t mind picking seeds, go for it. I opted for the easier solution this time. I cut the watermelon flesh into bite-sized cubes. I arranged those cubes on a plate. Then it was time to dress the melon up a bit by adding some citrus to the party. You should take three small limes and zest them. Zesting a lime refers to the process of scraping off the outermost part of the lime – the bright green part. If you start scraping down too deep, you’ll run into the bitter white portion of the lime, which you do NOT want. Using a fine grater should be able to achieve the results you want for this recipe. Once you have gotten a tablespoon or so of the lime zest, add that to a small saucepan. Then it’s time to juice those three limes for all they’ve got! Squeeze ’em hard and get all of that juice. Pour the juice into the saucepan with the lime zest. Now to add a little spice, get out a piece of ginger root. You’ll only need about a teaspoon of very finely grated ginger root. All you need to do is peel it and then grate it until it’s almost a paste. You don’t want to bite down on a big hunk of ginger, because it would totally overwhelm your taste buds – plus, it’s spicy! Add the teaspoon of finely grated ginger to your lime zest and juice.

Now to add some sweetness, take about 1/4 cup of your favorite honey. I used a local wildflower honey that I found in Rappahannock County. The honey will very nicely balance out the tart flavor of the limes and the spicy heat of the ginger. Stir the ingredients over very low heat on the stove just for a minute or two until the honey has thinned out and everything is evenly mixed. It’s ok to pull this off the heat as soon as all of the ingredients are incorporated.

In a small pan, pour in a handful of your favorite nuts. I used walnuts, but you could certainly use sliced almonds, pecans, or even pine nuts. Toast the nuts in the pan, just for a few minutes until you can start to smell them. It should only take a few moments over low to medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally. While the nuts are toasting, take a few basil leaves and roll them up, like a cigar. Then take a knife and start shredding the basil into ribbons. Now you’re ready to assemble your watermelon salad.

Take a few spoonfuls of your dressing and drizzle it over the watermelon cubes. You should see a few flecks of green as the lime zest clings to the watermelon. The honey will almost seem to shine over the chunks of melon, giving everything a nice glossy sheen. Then for a bolder green color, sprinkle some of the basil ribbons over the watermelon. Add some of your toasted nuts on top of everything to give a nice crunchy component to your salad. Think of the toasted nuts as the croutons for your salad – giving a vital crunch to an otherwise soft dish. Finally, add a dash of salt and a tiny amount of fresh black pepper. The color contrast will delight your eyes and the flavor profiles you’ve combined will tickle your taste buds.

Juicy and bright!

It’s the perfect dish to make during the summer season and it can serve as a light lunch or a snack to carry you over until dinner. It only seemed fitting to make this on Labor Day, a holiday that many people view as the unofficial end to summer. It’s a dish that combines so many of our favorite summer ingredients into one simple, but elegant dish. So as I bid this summer a fond farewell, I’ll do so by giving a tribute to my favorite melon. As I do this, my mind will be transported to those early summer mornings spent with dad in the produce truck. So long, summer.

The colors of summer

May all your melons be sweet,

The Taste Bud