mary eats

For as long as I have been cooking, I have looked forward to the arrival of spring. The Olympia Farmer’s Market would finally reopen, full of calcium rich greens and not much else. Then in a few weeks the first sign of the forthcoming bounty appeared: bright green spears of asparagus, bundled and stacked high like a Campbell’s soup display at Safeway.

Culinary magazines from Bon Appetite to Martha Stewart, along with national and local newspapers continue to set off yearly national frenzies. Recipes and nostalgic essays dominate April issues and weekly food sections. I can’t help but get caught up in the drama. This isn’t only about cooking. The spring crop marks an end to dreary Pacific Northwest winters, and carries an air of hope and change.

My kitchen promptly went from heavy, starchy, one-pot mains, to light soups, frittatas and cold crudites. By the time the Asparagus season had ended, I was well into a spring fever, so to speak.

To the untrained eye, spring in Korea doesn’t bring much besides monstrous genetically engineered strawberries. No one vegetable carries an emotional weight here like Asparagus. Spring vegetables come in the form of mountain weeds, or namul. Memories of asparagus were like a lost dream- hazy.

Over the last three years I’ve done without, but lucky for us, Seoul’s answer to Dean and Delucca, the Galleria, has begun to stock the most delicate spears of asparagus I’ve come across.

Most chefs prefer pencil thin spears, and I’m no exception. Crisp with fresh flavor, they deserve to stand-alone. Naturally, I was skeptical. Kevin, on the other hand was gung-ho. I could tell that they were, obviously, real asparagus (with the amount of fake or copied goods here I wouldn’t be surprised), but the quality, the flavor, would it be there?

Raw, they gave off a crisp snap, a grassy aroma spritz through the air. I wanted a simple treatment, but a little more than the basic blanch with a dousing of olive oil.

Enter prosciutto.

Asparagus spears with prosciutto and onion. Adapted from epicurious.com

24 thin asparagus spears, trimmed
1 Tbsp. Olive oil
2 slices prosciutto diced
1 small yellow onion, sliced thin
Salt and Pepper to taste

Prepare asparagus to your preference. Personally I’m fond of long spears, but if you are all about convince, slice into 1 inch pieces.

Over medium heat in a large frying pan add the olive oil and prosciutto. Unlike bacon, proscuitto does not emit drippings. You can forgo the olive oil, but I found it helped keep things from sticking.

Give the ham a few quick stirs, then add the onion and asparagus. Stir to coat, then leave the pan alone for a minute to braise-so to speak- the mixture. What you’ll end up with-if your heat isn’t turned up too high- is a satisfying golden crust on the ham, onion, and asparagus.

Give a few shakes of the salt and pepper, toss, and plate. You can eat it hot or at room temperature.