Tony's Food 101: Asparagus is in Season

That's right, everyone's favorite tender, spear shaped veggie is back on the markets again.

It seems like a paradox to me how vegetables can be unhealthy, but the recent bacon craze is aparently trying to bring asparagus down too. Restaurants across the U.S. will be wrapping asparagus spears in all sorts of cured pork products, making them more like cholesterol rockets aimed right at your arteries. I'm not saying that it's not a brilliant combination, as far as taste goes, I'm just proposing a healthier, markedly lighter alternative for this veggie. Bacon wrapped asparagus just reminds me too much of Paula Deen ruining ears of corn (As a physician, I'm always puzzled as to how her heart is still beating. This is the woman who made a hamburger and used krispy kreme donuts as buns).

Likewise, a slightly more healthy way to cook this spring favorite is grilling, which is also delicious, but cannot get around the universal 120-calories-per-tablespoon-of-oil necessary to keep them from turning into carbon tubes over those charcoals. It's waaaaay better for you then wrapping them in prosciutto, but those of us still trying to shed some winter weight may want an alternative.

Enter steamed asparagus. I know, I know: Just like a doctor to tell you to steam vegetables and take away everyone's fun. These are different, and they use a little trick I figured out to add extra flavor without altering the nutritional value of the asparagus: Lemon Steaming. And, I am a cook too... this recipe needs a little salt added.

Lemon Steamed Asparagus

• One bunch of asparagus. Take your pick whether you get the pencil thin or big fat ones, just know it will affect your cooking time. Wider asparagus = longer cooking. Wash them, then snap them about two thirds from the head. This gets rid of the woody, impossible to actually eat stems. If you just bend the asparagus in this region, it will naturally snap where the stem gets too tough.


• One lemon, sliced into disks.


• Black pepper and salt to taste.

Pre-heat your oven to Bake 350. Line the bottom of a glass 8x8 or 9x9 square dish with lemon slices. Arrange the asparagus in as close to a single layer over the lemons as possible. Season with salt and pepper. Cover the whole thing tightly with tin foil, and put in the oven. Leave in for about 20-25 minutes if you like your aspargus crisp, or 30-35 minutes if you like it "well done." You should be able to smell the asparagus and lemons around your oven. Discard the lemons and eat.

So. You're done with dinner. A commercial comes on during your favorite show. You trot over to the bathroom, unzip and let g.... wait a minute? What the heck is that smell?

Congratulations. You've discovered the downside to eating asparagus, and you're also sort of genetically special. Sort of. There are two different genes floating around in your cells: one to excrete an unidentified compound from asparagus into your urine, and another to be able to detect the smell. So you're in a group of 20-40% of people with this combination. It won't get you into the X-Men or Heroes, but hey, it's something.

Be back next week with some Reconstructionist cuisine... yes I am that nerdy. Sorry about the lack of real pictures, my digital camera bit the proverbial dust. I'll try to con my girlfriend into letting me borrow her's.

Tony's Food 101: Basic Technique for Leafy Greens

Maybe you belong to a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm, and just got a bushell of big, tough green leaves. Maybe your next door neighbor is an organic gardening enthusiast with a little too much yield this season. Maybe you read the latest Jamie Oliver book, went out and bought 5 heads of Italian Black Kale and you have no idea what to do with the remaining three or four. There is a simple answer to each of these questions, and it's right on the other side of a pot of boiling water.

Yup. Boil 'em... just not for British amounts of time. Quickly boiling any leafy green vegetable is an easy and healthy way to serve this particular class of food. Now, I'm not disregarding some tried and true recipes involving leafy greens - I am a New Englander, after all (just like this guy). Some of them aren't necessarily the fastest.... and some of them involve large amounts of salted animal fats. The best part about this way of cooking leafy greens is that the actual cooking process is fast and doesn't leave much time for the nutrients these bad boys contain to leech into the water they're cooked in. It also leaves (bu-dum-shinnnng) alot of flavor behind, too.

Flash-boiled greens

• One head of leafy greens for every two people you want to serve. Swiss chard, mustard greens, beet tops, non-baby spinach, kale, dinosaur kale, or any others are perfectly acceptable. Being largely a purist, I leave collard greens and cabbage to the professionals. Wash them well, as sometimes they're a little too farm fresh.
• Good, pungent extra-virgin olive oil. You're not cooking it, per se, so haul out the first-press, unfiltered Italian import you've been keeping in a cool, dark place for just such an occasion.
• A pinch of salt. You don't really need more than this. Don't salt the water either. I don't think I need to go on that tangent again, after the recent national media frenzy.
• Fresh ground black pepper, to taste.
• Either one of three things - A lemon, a pinch of nutmeg, or a whole garlic clove. More on this later.

Fill a stock pot or kettle with water and bring it to a boil (keeping it covered really does make it go faster). Make sure it's at a full, rolling boil. Put the water on as the very very first step of making dinner. As it's heating up, do all the other stuff you need to do, the water will take a little while.

If you picked garlic from the above list, find whatever bowl you're going to serve your greens in. Cut your garlic clove in half and rub the inside of the bowl with the cut half of the garlic. This will scent the greens, but not make you the least popular person at work the next day.

Dunk your leaves in and give them a swirl with a pair of tongs. Watch them closely. They will start to become limp, you don't want them too soft. When they're cooked to a tenderness you happen to like (I tend on the undercooked side out of personal preference), tong them out of the pot and into a collander. Shake them a few times to drain some of the excess water. Put them in a bowl (again, if you picked garlic, into your pre-garlic'd bowl). Toss them with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of salt, black pepper and either a squeeze of fresh lemon or some nutmeg. The nutmeg works especially well with spinach.

Side Dishes 101: Fiery Cauliflower

Cauliflower. The word doesn't exactly inspire the same passions as the mention of other foods: Steak and chocolate it is not. Regardless, cauliflower is a beloved vegetable of mine, but the truth is it's pretty bland. I've seen cauliflower used in a variety of ways - deep fried, slow cooked, even crumbled as a vegan replacement for parmesan cheese. It's versitility comes from it's flavor, which reflects it's pale, non-descript color. Cauliflower is a blank canvas, like boneless-skinless chicken breasts. You can layer whatever flavor you want onto it, the native flavor of broccoli's albino cousin won't compete. Not only can you add bold flavors to cauliflower, you can serve it alongside big, hearty flavors again with little in the way of competition between them.

Here's something that I made up for my brother the other week when he came over to my appartment. My brother and I had this fiery cauliflower along side some slow braised short rib - a perfect dinner for the cold days in between winter and fall.

Figure 1A. Golden, but not quite with brown at the edges yet.

Fiery Cauliflower

• One head of cauliflower, cut into 1-2" florets. Make sure you wash this stuff well, dirt tends to make it's way in between the stems and under the crowns.


• Four or five good glugs of olive oil. Don't use anything special here, again Colavita makes a solid, affordable olive oil.


• Two to four teaspoons of sambal. Most grocery stores these days carry this stuff. If you can't find it, feel free to try using sriracha, korean soonchang or any other asian chili based condiment you can get your hands on.


• One pinch of salt.


• Grated Parmagiano-reggiano.

Preheat your oven to Bake 350. In a large mixing bowl stir or whisk the olive oil, sambal and salt together. Toss the cauliflower in this mixture until it's well coated. Spread the florets out in one layer on a cookie sheet and roast for about 30 minutes, until golden with a little brown at the edges (Figure 1A). Scoop into a serving bowl and finish off with the grated Parmagiano. Depending on how much sambal you decided to use, this may not be for the faint of heart.

Until next week!