Asparagus
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| Asparagus | ||||||||||||||
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| Asparagus officinalis |
Asparagus is the name of a vegetable obtained from one species within the genus Asparagus, specifically the young shoots of Asparagus officinalis. It has been used from very early times as a culinary vegetable, owing to its delicate flavor and diuretic properties. There is a recipe for cooking asparagus in the oldest surviving book of recipes, Apicius's 3rd century CE De re coquinaria, Book III.
In their simplest form, the shoots are boiled or steamed until tender and served with a light sauce like hollandaise or melted butter or a drizzle of olive oil with a dusting of Parmesan cheese. A refinement is to tie the shoots into sheaves and stand them so that the lower part of the stalks are boiled, while the more tender heads are steamed. Tall cylindrical asparagus cooking pots have liners with handles and perforated bases to make this process foolproof.
Unlike most vegetables, where the smaller and thinner are the more tender, thick asparagus stalks have more tender volume to the proportion of skin. When asparagus has been in the market too long, the cut ends will have dried and gone slightly concave. The best asparagus is picked and washed while the water comes to the boil. Fastidious cooks scrape asparagus stalks with a vegetable peeler, stroking away from the head, and refresh them in ice-cold water before steaming them; the peel is often added back to the cooking water and removed only after the asparagus is done, this is supposed to prevent diluting the flavor. Small or full-sized stalks can be made into asparagus soup. Cantonese restaurants in the United States often serve asparagus stir-fried with chicken, shrimp, or beef. Asparagus is one of few foods which are considered acceptable to eat with the hands in polite company, although this is more common in Europe.
The amino acid asparagine gets its name from asparagus, the asparagus plant being rich in this compound.
Other plants called asparagus
Many related and unrelated plants may be called "asparagus" or said to be "used as asparagus" when eaten for their shoots. In particular, the shoots of a distantly related plant, Ornithogalum pyrenaicum may be called "Prussian asparagus". See Category:Stem vegetables.