Are you a white asparagus or a green asparagus type? Chances are that if you are reading this in the English speaking world you are distinctly green. However, in Northern Europe and especially in Germany, you are revelling in the fact that the spargelzeit (asparagus season) has started and that you will be enjoying a very small percentage of the 72,000 tons of white asparagus that is produced in that country between the end of April and the middle of June. The Spanish likewise adore white asparagus whereas the French and the Italians, for the most part, revere both varieties.

My Anglo Saxon upbringing gave me a distinct leaning towards green asparagus and I still look forward to the English asparagus season – also now in its full and glorious flow – with great enthusiasm. Lately, however, I have developed an unhealthy fascination with the foreign stuff. I can say “foreign” with some assurance because I know of no English producer and would be delighted to be contradicted on this score. I believe white asparagus remains foreign to the English palate and that we are missing out in ignoring such an intriguing vegetable.

White asparagus is one of those foods that combines with a remarkable number of ingredients to very good effect. If the apotheosis of white asparagus is with morels and butter, a dish I used to serve with great enthusiasm at Kensington Place, there are plenty of other suitable partners for this companionable vegetable. I suggested that the Italians are ambivalent in their preference for green or white asparagus but that would hardly be true of those in the Veneto, especially around the town of Bassano del Grappa. L’Asparago Bianco di Bassano may be a slim volume but it contains some 60 recipes, using white asparagus in diverse dishes including risotto, salads, sweet tarts and cakes.

If white asparagus lends itself to experimentation – my preparation below with pink grapefruit may seem radical – it is also perfectly amenable to traditional treatment. I don’t think I have ever had it better served than brought to the table in a warm napkin in the Grill Room of the Mandarin hotel in Hong Kong, with a large silver sauceboat filled with an impeccable béarnaise sauce. The irony that Hong Kong is perhaps the last refuge of that sort of punctilious correctness did not escape me but nor did it mar my pleasure in this immaculate performance.

White asparagus with pink grapefruit

Ingredients

400g large white asparagus

1 large pink grapefruit

50ml extra virgin olive oil

Method

●Laying the asparagus flat on a board and holding the tip between thumb and forefinger, peel the stalks with a swivel peeler, always directing the peeler away from the tip, leaving three or four cm of tip untouched. Rinse briefly in cold water.

●With a small serrated knife, cut across the base and top of the pink grapefruit, exposing the flesh of the fruit. Place the fruit on the board and peel away rind and pith as though removing the staves of a barrel, leaving only the fruit behind. Holding the fruit over a small bowl, gently remove the segments of fruit from between its walls of pith and squeeze any juice over these segments.

●Drop the asparagus into a very large pot of well salted, boiling water and cook at a steady simmer for six to 10 minutes, depending on their thickness. The asparagus should be cooked through with no fibrous resistance.

●Place the asparagus flat on two plates and season with milled black pepper and sea salt. Scatter the pink grapefruit segments on top and then anoint with the olive oil. Serve immediately.

TAGLIATELLE WITH WHITE ASPARAGUS

It takes time and a little patience to shave the asparagus into thin ribbons and a sharp mandolin is much the best tool. Serves four.

Ingredients

400g white asparagus

300g tagliatelle

50g unsalted butter

50g grated Parmesan Reggiano

Method

●Peel the asparagus as in the previous recipe and then slice the spears on a mandolin, thus producing long, thin ribbons no more than 2 millimetres thick.■ ●Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil and add the tagliatelle. Following the precise directions on the packet regarding the cooking time, cook the tagliatelle, adding the asparagus exactly two minutes before the pasta is due to be cooked. Drain pasta and asparagus together, saving some of the cooking water. Melt the butter in the pan and return the pasta and asparagus, turning them together. Season with salt, if necessary, and milled black pepper and serve, taking the cheese to the table.

rowley.leigh@ft.com

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