If you buy fresh asparagus, you can savour more than just the tips. The cut-offs also make wonderful cooking ingredients. Markus Arnold, head chef at Restaurant Steinhalle in Bern and V-ZUG ambassador, knows exactly what to cook with them.
Top chef, Markus Arnold, usually works with incredibly fresh asparagus in his restaurant. And as he can’t bring himself to waste any of it, he uses the cut-offs and the peel too. He usually leaves the peel on green asparagus and simply carves the lower end of the vegetable a little. “Our green asparagus is so fresh that we barely have to cut anything off at all”, he says. And he uses the scraps from the white asparagus for soup. He boils them in a vegetable or chicken stock and then mixes them with cream and milk. “If you have a high-power mixer, you don’t even need to strain them”, he explains. He soaks the white asparagus peel in white balsamic for around one week. “This makes a wonderful asparagus vinegar that we can then use as a vinaigrette with asparagus dishes, for example”, he explains. The star chef also enjoys white asparagus the traditional way with a Hollandaise sauce. He says: “The fatty Hollandaise and the tarragon go beautifully with asparagus.”