Erica De Mane

Recipe below, incorporated in text: Asparagus Soup with Montasio, Lemon, and Tarragon or Basil

This is my second asparagus post this year, yet the season has only just got started here in New York. We had snow flurries a few days ago. Who cares? I’m cooking high spring. I make a smooth asparagus soup once or twice each spring. Smooth green soup, it never disappoints me.

Asparagus seems to be a subject many artists like. It’s a vegetable both rustic and elegant. A painter can go either way or both ways at once. I especially like pictures that stress both its skinniness and its lumpiness. I’ve noticed that most older paintings depict white asparagus, since that used to be considered fancy. Newer art usually goes for green. I’ve also noticed that the asparagus is almost always in bundles, not loose, and the ties on the bundles are often a tight squeeze, like the stalks are being choked. Not sure why. Maybe to add extra texture. Here are a few more asparagus paintings I like.

And that above is my asparagus soup with Montasio, lemon, and tarragon or basil, in this case tarragon.

To make this soup for four,  you’ll want a spring onion, one with the tender green stem attached, chopped.  A medium Yukon gold potato, skinned and chopped, and a big bunch of asparagus (at least a dozen thick ones, or more if they’re thin), the tough ends trimmed and the stalks roughly chopped. If you have spring garlic, you can add a little of that, too, but don’t bother if you can only find the papery winter stuff, as that would spoil the soup’s spring feeling. I also added a handful of celery leaves.

Drizzle a good amount of olive oil into a soup pot. Add the onion, potato, and asparagus, plus the celery leaves if you’re using them, season with a little salt and a pinch of fennel pollen, and sauté for two or three minutes. Add a splash of dry vermouth, and let it bubble away. Next pour in about 5 cups of light chicken or vegetable broth. Let it all cook at a medium boil, uncovered, until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.

Purée the soup in a food processor, adding a little water to loosen it if necessary.

Pour it back into the pot, and add the grated zest from a small lemon and a tiny squeeze of lemon juice. When you’re ready to serve it, reheat it, and then stir in a few big scrapings of Montasio cheese and some black pepper. Taste for seasoning. Ladle out the soup, and top each serving with a bit more grated Montasio, fresh chopped tarragon or basil (I’ve made it both ways, and both are nice), and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. It will be good hot and good cold, too.

A note about Montasio: You can certainly use Parmigiano or grana Padano (or Asiago) in this soup, but I happened to have a piece of Montasio on hand, so that went in. I love this DOP cow’s milk cheese from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The piece I had was aged long enough to be a grating cheese. Age mellows Montasio, so you get a sweet richness with none of the always surprising pineapple taste of Parmigiano. It’s more one-note, but in a good, solid way. I like to switch out my Italian cheeses, so whenever I go to a good cheese shop, I pick something that I’ve never tried or haven’t had in a while, just to refresh my cheese memory. Cheese memory is a terrible thing to waste.