Our Favorite Way to Cook Asparagus _ Serious Eats at Home

Welcome to Serious Eats at Home! Today, I'm excited to share with you a quick and easy method for cooking vegetables, specifically asparagus. As many of you know, I've recently moved into a new home and have a bit more space and kitchen room than my previous place. This gives me the perfect opportunity to experiment with new recipes and techniques.

To start, all you'll need is a cast iron or carbon steel pan, some fresh vegetables, and a little bit of vegetable oil. The method I'm about to share with you is one that I use all the time for charring vegetables like asparagus, cabbage, or snap peas. For today's recipe, we're focusing on charring asparagus.

First, let's start by searing off a bavette steak in just a little bit of vegetable oil over high heat. Turning occasionally until I got nice sear and it's just out of the pan and resting. Now that our steak is cooking, we can use the same carbon steel pan to cook our asparagus. This is what's really nice about this method - you're able to cook your side dish in the time that it takes for your meat to rest.

To get started with our asparagus, I'm going to trim off the very ends. Now, I know some of you might have heard people talk about "breaking" asparagus between their hands and telling where it breaks is where it's supposed to be. Unfortunately, this can often lead to a lot of wasted asparagus. What we really want to do is cut just off the bottom inch or so, depending on the thickness of our spears.

Now that our asparagus is trimmed, let's separate the thicker spears from the thinner ones. This will help us cook them at different rates, as they all cook at slightly different times. We'll start with the thicker ones and cook them over medium-high heat until we get a nice char on one side. Once those are done, we can add in the thinner ones and repeat the process.

To cook our thicker spears, we need to make sure the pan is hot, no oil in the pan. This will help prevent any fat from splattering up and burning us while we cook. For this recipe, I'm using a super heavy weight like a can of tomatoes to weigh down my asparagus spears. However, for thinner spears, I'll use tongs or my hands to hold them in place, making sure not to touch the pan itself.

To get that perfect "droop" we want to see on our cooked asparagus, we need to cook it quickly over high heat and then let it cool slightly. Once we've got all of our spears cooked, we can season with a little bit of oil, salt, and pepper. That's it! Our charred asparagus is now ready to be served alongside your favorite sauce or dish.

For this recipe, I'm using a simple chimichurri made with herbs that I picked up at the farmer's market. This sauce is perfect for summer nights when you don't want to spend too much time cooking and just want something light and easy. And let me tell you, this charred asparagus is one of my favorite ways to enjoy it!