Archives For November 30, 1999
The asparagus cultivated, bought, eaten and enjoyed in much of continental northern Europe – particularly across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany – is typically white rather than green. It is a seasonal vegetable, appearing from mid-April until late June; prized for its subtle flavour and marking the arrival of spring.
Many recipes for white asparagus suggest that its delicate flavours are best served by simple steaming; others call for simmering in water, with butter and a firm squeeze of lemon. The following recipe asks that you do neither of these onerous things. Instead, in this recipe you will first roast then briefly and gently brown your white asparagus; and serve it with salmon and pan-roasted new potatoes.
Serves two; double the ingredients to serve four; and progress in the same mathematical manner for all additional parties. The total cooking time is about thirty-five minutes.
Ingredients
- 5 white asparagus spears
- 2 salmon fillets
- 350g new potatoes
- Fresh dill
- Butter
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Salt
- Pepper
Method
- Heat your oven to 200C.
- Boil and salt some water in a pot or large saucepan.
- White asparagus tends to possess a woody exterior which must be peeled. So peel the asparagus spears carefully, chop off the coarse bottoms, and slice in half lengthways.
- Put the asparagus into a roasting tray, with a little olive oil, and roast for around twenty minutes.
- Add the new potatoes, unpeeled, to the boiling salted water. Boil these for the same twenty minutes.
- Drain the water from the potatoes, and put them back into the pot on a medium-high heat, with some butter.
- Chop the fresh dill, and throw this in with the potatoes. Add salt and pepper, and roast the potatoes in the butter for several minutes.
- Melt some butter in a hot pan, add salt and pepper, and throw in the asparagus. Coat the asparagus, browning for just a couple of minutes.
- Season the salmon fillets, and cook in a pan with a little oil, three or four minutes on each side.
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ERAAS and Dirty Beaches will perform at OT301 tonight from 8.30 pm. Tickets will cost €10 on the door; with free entry for members of Subbacultcha!, under whose auspices the show appears.
ERAAS is a two-piece band from Brooklyn comprising Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz, former members of Apse. Their atmospheric post-rock features whispered, reverberating vocals against thick percussion, often building, sometimes jagged and driving guitars, and droning synths. The duo’s self-titled debut album was released last October.
Dirty Beaches is the pseudonym of Alex Zhang Hungtai, a Montreal-based Taiwanese-born musician whose art draws from a divergence of genres. With his early work inspired by hip-hop and sampling, 2011’s acclaimed Badlands saw Hungtai moulding a sample-based, lo-fi, half-forgotten version of late 50s/early 60s rock and roll, producing an album evocative, disquieting and dramatic. Badlands was long-listed for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize. Hungtai has defined the album, and the Dirty Beaches persona, as an exploration of ‘repeating themes, reoccurring characters being in exile or just away from home’.
Staying in Berlin in late 2012 while completing his latest album, Drifters, Hungtai used the studio of a friend, empty into the night, to record a second set of largely ambient songs. The resulting double LP, Drifters/Love is The Devil, will be officially released on 20 May in Europe, and the following day in the United States.
amsterdamarm 