Frittelle di asparagi (Asparagus Fritters)

The spring brings us some beautiful fruits and vegetables—tiny peas, artichokes, fava beans in their hefty pods, plump ruby red strawberries… But, to my mind, none is more emblematic of the season than asparagus.

Sure, these days you can find asparagus all year round, and I know peole who don’t hesitate to serve it in the dead of winter. But not me. There are lots of reasons for eating in season, but for me the most important one is emotional. When I eat what’s in season, I feel more attached to the natural world around me. And by ‘depriving’ myself of out of season vegetables, that makes their season even more special. s

Many recipes for asparagus highlight the elegant slender form. Asparagi all’agro, asparagus served whole with a lemon and oil dressing, or asparagi alla milanese—perhaps the best known asparagus dish in Italian cookery, come to mind. In today’s post, however, I want to share with you a more home style way to prepare asparagus, one that is sure to win your heart, frittelle di asparagi. or Asparagus Fritters. As the saying goes, fritte son bone anche le scarpe–even a shoe tastes good when it’s fried. And that goes for asparagus, too.

The recipe is simplicity itself. You steam or boil the asparagus, chop it up and mix it with an egg batter, which you fry in spoonfuls until golden brown. It’s something you can throw together in well under 30 minutes. And if you make the batter ahead, it only takes literally seconds to fry these frittelle up when you’re ready to eat.

Frittelle di asparagi make a lovely home style antipasto or savory finger food for enjoying with a glass of wine or cocktails before dinner. In large batches they could even serve as a vegetable based main course. They would also be right at home as part of a fritto misto.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6 as an antipasto or snack

• 500g (1 lb) green asparagus
• salt, to taste

For the batter:

• 4 eggs
• 3-4 Tbs all purpose flour, or as much as needed
• 25g (1 oz) freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano (or more to taste)
• freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking powder (optional)
• salt and pepper

For frying:

• Vegetable and/or olive oil

Directions

Prepare the batter

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and cheese.

Add the flour a spoonful at a time, until you have a medium dense batter, about the texture of a pancake mix. Then add the baking powder and season with salt and pepper, and a good scrape of nutmeg.

Mix well and let the batter rest for at least 30 minintes.

Cook the asparagus

While the batter is resting, trim the asparagus stalks of their tough bottoms and, if on the thick side, peel their skins.

Boil or steam the asparagus in well salted water until fully tender, about 10 or even 15 minutes for thick stalks.

Drain the asparagus and let cool.

Batter and fry the asparagus

When the asparagus is cool enough to handle, chop the stalks into short lengths.

Add the chopped asparagus to the bowl with the batter and mix well.

In a skillet or sauté pan, heat enough oil to come up at least 1 cm (1/2 inch) from the bottom.

When the oil is hot but not smoking, drop in the battered asparagus in spoonfuls, spacing them well so they have room to fry rather than steam.

Once golden brown on one side, turn the fritters over and brown the other side. Proceed in batches until you’ve used up all the batter.

Serve while still warm, sprinkled with salt to taste.

Notes on frittelle di asparagi

All the [usual tips] on frying apply here. In particular you want to heat the oil until it is quite hot but not smoking, hot enough so that the oil bubbles up in a lively fashion around any food you drop into it. Not so hot, however, so it smokes. Be aware that with the oil this hot, these fritters will brown up very quickly. You really only need seconds on each side, so they don’t turn too dark. They are thin enough that they will cook through. And of course, you should avoid overcrowding the pan.

Prepping and cooking the asparagus

As noted in the recipe, for this dish you should cook the asparagus until fully tender, but not mushy. Not the crisp tender texture that many of us moderns prefer. Asparagus is famously hard to cook evenly as unless you’re working with pencil thin stalks, the tips cook faster than the base.

Those purpose made asparagus cookers (which also work well for boiling long pastas) are ideal for the job. You only add as much water as you need to cover the base of the stalks, they boil while the tips gently steam. If you don’t have one, that’s alright, as you’ll be chopping the stalks anyway. You could also trim off the tips and cook the stalks for a few minutes before adding them.

In any event, do trim off the base of the asparagus, the part that isn’t green. And unless you’re working with very thin asparagus, it’s a good idea to peel the stalks starting perhaps a quarter of the way down from the tip.

Variations

If you want something a bit more substantial, you could add cooked ham, either shredded or cut into cubes, to the batter along with the chopped asparagus.

You could also try using a few spoonfuls breadcrumbs instead of flour to thicken the batter. If you add enough breadcrumbs to form a very thick batter, then let it rest for say 15 minutes, you could from patties you can then fry like a hamburger. Omit the baking powder.

If you prefer, you can make a eggless batter with 200g (7 oz) flour and enough fizzy water or beer to achieve the right consistency. You can omit the baking powder here, too, as the carbonation provides enough lift. Leave the pre-cooked asparagus stalks whole, then dip them in the batter and fry them until golden brown on both sides, and you’ll have asparagi fritti sometimes called asparagi in camicia (asparagus in a shirt) rather than frittelle.

If you like a cheesier fritter, the ricotta batter used in our recipe for zucchini blossom fritters also works very nicely with chopped asparagus.

And speaking of which, this recipe works beautifully with other spring vegetables such as fava beans or peas. Braise them with butter and shallot until tender, adding water as needed, then, after they’ve cooled off a bit, add them to the batter and proceed per the main recipe.

Making frittelle di asparagi ahead

Like all fried food, these frittelle are at their best if fry them right when you’re ready to eat and serve them up nice and hot. Here another old (Neapolitan) saying comes to mind, frijenne e magnà! or fry and eat. There’s wisdom in that old saying, as fried foods are at their crispy best right off the skiilet. You can of course make the batter and cook the asparagus in advance so you have everyting ready for frying beforehand. The actual frying only will take a few minutes.

That said,while they will have lost their crispy texture, any leftover frittelle will still be very tasty indeed. You could also try ‘waking them up’ by airfrying them for a coule of minutes before serving.