Crispy Asparagus from Veni, vidi, veggie by Top Chef Geneal Harreman
Vegetables as a sad little side dish? Those days are over. Geneal Harreman, known from the TV programme BinnensteBuiten and top restaurants such as Vermeer, RIJKS and De Kas, shows that vegetables deserve to be the real main course. And how! In his debut Veni, vidi, veggie, he gives ten popular vegetables the spotlight they deserve. He’s not a vegetarian or a vegan, just a chef with a boundless love of vegetables. And you can taste it; just try making these crispy asparagus with yellow curry cheese sauce!
Vegetables in the spotlight
Veni, vidi, veggie isn’t a cookbook telling you everything you’re not allowed to eat. It’s a paean to honest, delicious vegetables, divided into ten chapters featuring Dutch favourites. (Sweet) potatoes, asparagus, beetroot, cauliflower, kale, mushrooms, pumpkin, pointed cabbage, Brussels sprouts and chicory. Each chapter starts with the tastiest basic preparation, such as the best roast potatoes, the ultimate grilled green asparagus and super-crispy fried chicory.
Dishes that pack a punch
Forget standard steamed broccoli. Vegetables aren’t an excuse on your plate here. They’re the rock stars of your meal. With Geneal, you get dishes bursting with flavour and texture, such as crispy asparagus with yellow curry cheese sauce, fried beetroot with Swiss chard, walnut and soy butter sauce, and noodles with miso-gochujang cream sauce and crispy kale.
BANG IT!
Geneal is no stranger to the culinary world. Miljuschka calls him “the best vegetable chef in the Netherlands” and Joris Bijdendijk says: “Finally, the book by the country’s most positive, athletic and succulent vegetable chef! All his dishes are bursting with flavour. As Geneal always says: ‘BANG IT!’”
Okay, let’s go!
Making crispy asparagus with yellow curry cheese sauce
Geneal: “Yellow curry and asparagus? Yes! Trust me, this dish is worth deep-frying for. Deep-frying the asparagus in breadcrumbs gives it a crispy texture on the outside while it remains deliciously juicy inside. The sauce is exciting, but also very comforting because of the combination of yellow curry and mature cheese. You can bread and deep-fry the asparagus completely, but you can also bread it halfway, leaving the top visible so the asparagus remains recognisable. This is the kind of dish you serve when you have guests over for dinner and want to make a bit of an impression, just a bit…”
Method
- Start with the curry cheese sauce. Halve the white onion and cut it into thin half-rings. Finely chop the garlic cloves. Melt the butter in a pan over low heat without letting it colour, and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the turmeric and gently fry until its flavour and colour are released.
- Then pour in the cream and simmer gently over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Add 100 millilitres of water and stir so the sauce is well combined. Then stir in the grated cheese as well. Let the sauce simmer very gently over low heat for at least 10 minutes, so the cheese melts completely and thickens the sauce.
- Turn off the heat and blend the sauce until smooth in a blender or with a hand blender. Stir in the lime juice and zest, and season with salt and pepper.
- Peel the asparagus with a vegetable peeler and cut off the woody ends; reserve the peelings. Fill a pan with 2½ litres of water and add the asparagus peelings, garlic cloves and a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil. Place the asparagus in the pan and make sure it is just covered. Put a tea towel on top to keep the asparagus submerged and allow it to cook gradually, but be careful not to let the towel hang beside the pan, in the flame of the stove.
- Cook the asparagus for 15 to 20 minutes until tender without letting the water boil vigorously; the occasional bubble rising to the surface is perfect. Remove the asparagus from the liquid and let it steam-dry on a plate lined with kitchen paper.
- Heat a deep fryer to 180 °C. If you don’t have a deep fryer, like me, you can use a medium-height pan that is wide enough to deep-fry the asparagus. Fill it just halfway with frying or sunflower oil. Do not heat the oil above 180 °C; use a kitchen thermometer to check this.
- Chop the parsley as finely as possible and mix it with the panko and a little salt and pepper. Crack the eggs into a bowl or deep plate and whisk them loose with 10 millilitres of water.
- Take two more bowls or deep plates for breading: use one for the panko and parsley and one for the flour. When breading, always start with flour, then the egg, and finish with the panko. The flour helps the egg stick to the asparagus, which in turn helps the panko adhere better when you roll them in it.
- Bread the asparagus once (either completely or halfway, as desired; see the introduction) and press it lightly so the crust stays in place. Do this by taking the asparagus one at a time in the palm of your hand and squeezing gently.
- Deep-fry the asparagus in batches for about 4 minutes, or until beautifully golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.
- Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan over high heat and fry the spinach very briefly. Season with salt. Halve the cherry tomatoes.
- Use the back of a spoon to make a mirror of sauce on each plate. Divide the spinach over it, with the fried asparagus alongside. Finish with the cherry tomatoes.
TIP! Let your frying oil cool after use and, the next day, pour it through a sieve into an empty (glass) bottle. Keep it for the next time you deep-fry.
Vegetables that pack a bigger punch than your steak? In Veni, vidi, veggie, Geneal Harreman shows you how to put them in the spotlight.
Title: Veni, vidi, veggie. 60 vegetable recipes to steal the show with
Author: Geneal Harreman
Price: €29.99
Publisher: Nijgh Cuisine
Also read:
- Martha Stewart’s trick makes your potato salad taste 100 times better
- 15 delicious salad recipes you’ll want to add to your repertoire right away
- Man flips out on Twitter: why are salads so boring?!? 9 tips for doing it right
