Recipe: old-fashioned delicious asparagus from Grandma Kees
Asparagus season comes with its own rituals. Some people drive all the way to Limburg to get them, while others have their favorite asparagus restaurant. We always eat asparagus at my mother-in-law’s. Corona puts a big fat line through all those plans: it’s not happening. Luckily, Grandma Kees revealed her secret for cooking perfect asparagus.
In recent years, my mother-in-law had her own asparagus dealer. Cousin Fons brought the asparagus in the trunk, directly from Limburg to Edam—a journey of almost two hundred kilometers. Now she gets her white gold from the greengrocer in town, whom she calls the vegetable jeweler. ‘Expensive, yes, but I only eat them once a week. So then it’s perfectly fine to spend a little extra once in a while.’
Asparagus queen explains it all
Our asparagus tradition: every year, we would go to Grandma Kees’s for a delicious asparagus dinner, or she would come to us. This year, we’re not doing that for the time being. She is 88 years old, so we are strictly following the coronavirus guidelines—you don’t even want to think about something happening to the asparagus queen. We agreed that she would buy half a kilo of asparagus, while we would get a full kilo, and that we would eat them that same evening. Of course, I’ll cook them exactly as she explained. And that way, we’ll still be enjoying asparagus together.
How to prepare the asparagus
- Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add some salt.
- Meanwhile, peel the asparagus. Keep the peelings and ends separate; the next day, you can use them to make stock.
- Peel the potatoes and put them on to cook in cold water.
- Put the asparagus in the boiling water. Bring it back to the boil and let the asparagus cook over low heat for about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, melt the butter, make rolls out of the ham, chop the parsley and boil the eggs the way you like them—soft- or hard-boiled.
- Test whether the asparagus is cooked: lift an asparagus spear out of the pan with a fork. Does it bend? It’s done! Turn off the heat.
- Serve the asparagus on a preheated platter with the ham rolls, parsley and boiled eggs. Serve the potatoes and melted butter separately.
