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Fried Asparagus
Blanch the asparagus a couple of minutes, and then drain it; dip each piece in batter and fry it in hot fat. When done, sprinkle with salt and serve hot. This is nice and easy to prepare.
A short entry that assumes you already know how to make a frying batter and judge hot fat. The two things it leaves out are the batter itself and the fat temperature.
- BlanchingTwo minutes in boiling salted water is right for spears of pencil thickness; thick spears want three. Shock them in ice water and dry them thoroughly, or the batter will slide off in the fat.
- The batterA plain period frying batter is roughly a cup of flour, an egg, and enough milk to make a coating the thickness of heavy cream. A beer or sparkling-water batter fries lighter and is closer to what a modern cook expects.
- Hot fat"Hot fat" in a wood-stove kitchen was judged by eye: fat that browned a cube of bread in about a minute, which puts it somewhere around 350-375F. Below that the coating soaks; much above it and the batter colors before the asparagus heats through.
- Fat to useThe original would have meant lard or beef drippings. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works; peanut or refined sunflower is closest in behavior.
- Frying in batchesSix or eight spears at a time in a deep pan. Crowding drops the oil temperature and the pieces stick together in the fat.
- Salt and timingSalt the moment they come out, while the surface is still oily enough to hold it. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the undersides stay crisp.
- YieldA pound of asparagus, about a bunch, serves three or four as a side. It does not hold — fry it as the table is sitting down.
Asparagus was a market-garden crop of some standing in nineteenth-century America, and Buckeye Cookery, published at Minneapolis in 1877 as Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, treats it as a familiar spring vegetable — boiled, on toast, in soup, and here fried. Dipping a blanched vegetable in batter and dropping it into deep fat was standard household practice for cauliflower, salsify, parsnips, and eggplant alike; the batter stretched a small quantity of vegetable and made it substantial enough to stand beside meat. The closing line, "This is nice and easy to prepare," is characteristic of the book, which was assembled from contributions by many women and often keeps their offhand endorsements intact.