Asparagus

roseann48, Oct 18, 7:19pm
how do you preserve asparagus. Any tried & yum ideas would be great thanx.

twelve12, Oct 18, 7:21pm
How much of it?
If it's just a smaller amount, make a few little cuts in the outside skin, rub in salt until they're all bendy n soft. rinse off, then put in a jar with a mix of vinegar, sugar and water.
Can keep in the fridge. Mine are almost a year old and totally fine.

I've never preserved them for long-term storage though.

roseann48, Oct 18, 9:42pm
twelve12 I have access to as much as I would like but hesitate until I find a suitable way to preserve them. Have you ever frozen it.

uli, Oct 18, 10:44pm
You can freeze asparagus very well.

You need to sort the spears by size and then blanch small spears 2 minutes, medium spears 3 minutes, and large spears 4 minutes.

Be sure to have ample water in the pot so it returns rapidly to a boil, or you risk overcooking the asparagus, which means you have mushy spears when thawing it out later. If in doubt blanch shorter rather than longer.

Place spears into freezer bags and remove as much air as possible. Don’t overpack bags, but work to keep spears in a single layer for quickest freezing. I use ziplock bags and cut spears to the right size when cleaning them. Freeze bags as flat as possible.

Why not give it a try on a small scale - just one or two bags and then thaw them out in a day or so to see if you like the result.

If you go for it in a big way - make sure you keep all the offcuts and boil them in the blanching water once you have everything packed away. Then sieve the liquid and reduce a bit and add some nice pieces of asparagus and some eggs and make a lovely soup out of it. Or freeze in smaller lots in ice cream containers for later use.

roseann48, Oct 19, 9:56pm
Thanx uli. Will freeze some today. I love the tinned asparagus, only product I buy in tins. Any ideas how I could make similar.

uli, Aug 24, 2:54am
You could try "canning" - which is American and means pack the asparagus upright into Mason jars or Agee jars (the 1 liter ones would work I guess), then fill up with water and a bit of salt and cook in a waterbath.

The timing is much more difficult I guess than the freezing. You want it properly cooked, so it doesn't start to ferment in a month or two, but you also do not want to overcook and have mushy tips.

I have never tried that myself. I do lots of fruit that way as you cannot really overcook pears or plums etc, but with asparagus it could be a bit tricky.

There are also recipes for chutneys and pickles, but i have never tried them myself. I just indulge daily when in season and then pine the rest of the year :)