Friday, May 8, 2009
CSA / Events / Foods / Restaurants The Winner of the Iron Fork Asparagus Beauty Contest
Posted by Nicki Wood on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 8:41 AM
The crowd at Iron Fork on Wednesday was pretty big, and I worry that guests didn't have a chance to gaze on the winning entries, so I'm posting this camera phone shot of tayst restaurant's triple-take on purple asparagus. From the top: asparagus tips served with bacon-caramel sauce and lardons; with blood orange foam; and quinoa with strawberries. On the right, the tayst team's other entry: marinated flank steak over two purple spears, plated with a bowl of tobacco-smoked potato puree in a bath of cool asparagus soup, to quote Carrington's original report.
Looking back, I can't explain why I didn't just reach out and snatch up that asparagus with bacon and caramel.
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I had never tried purple asparagus, and because you can eat it raw, I swiped a stalk from the bin. (I took the one that Carrington picked up by accident, thus throwing myself on a likely grenade of contaminants.) It was wonderful—a crunch like celery, a crisp firmness of bite, and a taste that reminded me of a cross between a daikon and an apple. (Purple asparagus has 20 percent more sugar than the green variety.) Maybe because it had just been harvested from Delvin Farms four hours before the competition, it still tasted of earth and sunlight and outdoors.
I've been craving it ever since. I meant to keep tabs on how the chefs were preparing it, but I'll look up some recipes online.
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Rumor has it City House was serving purple asparagus -- the very same from Iron Fork, in fact -- last night.
Special thanks to Mr./Ms. Blurrycam for the fine images.
p.s. - Any vegetable can be eaten raw. Just ask Laura Button.
@picture finish: Blurry is just the beginning. How about that dizzying perspective?
