Asparagus is a spring icon. It’s green, fresh and at the same time bitter, sweet and slightly grassy. Really good, seasonal asparagus doesn’t need much to cook. In fact, too much heat can destroy its more delicate properties.
Completely raw asparagus is of course not entirely right either. Without a certain temperature control, the grassy taste can be too pronounced, making you feel like you are eating lawn waste rather than a delicious seasonal treat.
So if my friend Farmer Dan I was intrigued by a picture of lemon marinated asparagus in his Instagram stories. Instead of blanching the stems and then coating them with a mixture of oil and acid, he kept it a lot easier. I wanted to learn more about his method – mainly to see if it was blanched or not – and he was kind enough to explain his almost entirely sour marinade:
I haven’t blanched. Just added rice vinegar and / or lemon juice salt and pepper, [and] thinly sliced shallot or garlic. After a few days in the marinade, the shallot taste became very strong. No oil. Just add oil at cooking time. It stayed pretty crispy even after days. Fry them on a hot pan without moving them until they are warm browned on one side. I was nice and crispy.
When I tried Dan’s method, I found that the acidity made the asparagus tender like a quick blanch would, just without heat. After a full day, the stalks were still pretty crispy, but not so crispy that they were uncomfortable to eat. After two days they were perfectly tender and crispy with a pronounced shallot taste. They kept that texture and taste until they were all gone (about four days).
The toothy crunch and the bitter taste reminded me of it quick pickles, albeit much, much slower, so I started calling them “slow cucumbers”. You can eat them raw in salads, which I did, or you can quickly cook them over high heat like Dan does. Both are very good options. The nice thing about this preparation method is that your asparagus is always ready for anything – just grab it when you need it.
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To make this marinated spring treasure, chop your asparagus into 1 1/2 inch pieces (or smaller if you’d like), then toss them in a freezer bag with your marinade and let everyone get to know each other for at least 24 hours. The exact amounts of each ingredient are entirely up to you, but I’d start with at least half a cup of acid for a bunch of asparagus (I used at least 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice and rice vinegar), at least half a shallot, at least 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste. I also added half a teaspoon of sugar, although Dan didn’t recommend it, and I’ll do it again. (Don’t sleep on the shallots either – they’re a boon in themselves.)
