What is this asparagus and what you can do with it?

Currently, you can discover a variety of these little poles with the funny heads for every purchase. Whether green, purple or white, there is something for every taste. But what is it about asparagus, what is behind it and above all what can be cooked and enjoyed with it?

You'll find all that here!

In the past, asparagus was often referred to as the "royal vegetable", but today you can find it in almost every department store during the season. The asparagus itself is a pole vegetable and is considered purely organic as a herbaceous plant or semi-shrub. Asparagus is particularly common in Eurasia, China and Africa. In this country, Schrobenhausen is one of the best-known growing areas.

There are white, purple and green asparagus. These three differ from each other not only in color, but also in taste. While the white asparagus tastes particularly mild, the green asparagus, which grows above ground, by the way, tastes the strongest. The violet asparagus is placed in between and has a slightly stronger taste than the white asparagus. In addition to its pure strong taste, green asparagus is also the richest in vitamins.

Besides the taste, the composition of the asparagus is also interesting. For the weight loss fraction: 100 grams have only 17 kcal and 2 grams of carbohydrates. Furthermore, asparagus contains aspartic acid (has a purifying effect), as well as potassium, phosphorus, calcium, vitamin A, vitamins B1 and B2, vitamin C, vitamin E and not forgetting folic acid.

Asparagus is a seasonal vegetable that does not really survive a long transport, so you really have to stick to the season here. This is actually from mid-April to 24 June. But asparagus is not only very vain when it comes to transport, but also when it comes to the weather. So, both the start and the end of the season depend very much on the outside temperature.

However, sometimes you can find asparagus in the supermarkets as early as March. Then there must have been some trickery and the farmer made sure that the asparagus was warm enough by covering his fields with foil.

Who is now surprised that you can still find imported asparagus: Sometimes the asparagus also comes from Spain and Greece, but then only a few weeks before our own German asparagus.

By the way: In China and Peru you can harvest, prepare and of course eat asparagus all year round.

Asparagus should definitely always be eaten fresh. That is:

If you now eat white asparagus, you should peel it first. This can easily be done with a simple all-purpose or potato peeler. Peel the asparagus from the head to the end of the cut. (PS: The head is always so deliciously tender-melting, so don't take anything away here).

Green asparagus does not necessarily have to be peeled. You can of course peel a little bit of the skin at the end of the cut, but you should definitely be economical here.

If you want to cook the asparagus now, the white and violet asparagus needs 15 - 20 minutes for this. The green asparagus is already cooked with 10 - 15 minutes cooking time. To test whether the asparagus is already cooked, you can prick the end of the cut with a fork. You should still feel a little resistance here.

You can now eat asparagus with ham and sauce hollandaise. Here you can enjoy both white and purple as well as green asparagus. This famous sauce actually consists of super simple ingredients like butter, eggs, salt, pepper and some lemon juice. Super tasty, super simple.

Of course, there is also asparagus soup. This can be prepared by recycling all the asparagus parts, but you can also reuse the unused woody ends and cooking water.

Of course, you can also grill the asparagus at these temperatures. Prepare a Caprese salad with it or a quiche. The asparagus also looks great on a tarte flambée or  pizza. As a side dish, one can actually eat almost everything with the asparagus, so that one does not have to think about it.