We have been having plenty of asparagus lately. With the price of white asparagus starting at 3.50€ a kilogram, they are really too much of a temptation to resist. I’ll usually buy about 1kg or more at one go and keep the remaining asparagus wrapped in a damp cloth in the fridge to prevent them from drying away as they consist mostly of water. I’ve finally tried out T’s mom’s ‘verbal’ asparagus with pancake recipe and adjusted the amount of ingredients to serve two.

Asparagus with pancake

For the pancakes you’ll need (yield 6 pancakes):
160g of flour
3 fresh eggs
1/4 cup of milk
1 1/4 cup of sparkling mineral water
1 pinch of nutmeg powder
1 tsp of salt

For the asparagus you’ll need:
600g of white asparagus
30g of butter
2 tbsp of flour
1 tsp of salt
2 tsp of lemon juice
1/4 cup of milk
1 egg yolk (optional as the egg yolk will intensify the colour of the sauce)
1 to 1 1/2tsp of Maggi spice to taste

Preparations of asparagus:
1. Wash and peel the asparagus. Cut them into bite size. Salt and bring about 1/3 pot of water to boil. Add in the asparagus when the water is boiling and add in a small chunk of butter into the boiling water. Let it cook for about 2 minutes. Remove the pot from the stove and let the asparagus sit in the hot water (I’ll call it asparagus water).

2. In another pot, melt about 30g of butter on gentle heat. Add in flour and use an egg whisk to mix the melted butter together with the flour. Then add in about 1 cup of asparagus water and whisk the whole mixture on medium heat until there isn’t any flour clumps left.

3. Add in the egg yolk if you are using any and whisk the mixture again. Then add in salt, lemon juice, milk and the Maggi spice to taste. If the texture of the sauce is too thick or thin, the taste too bland or salty for your liking, feel free to add some more asparagus water or flour, more Maggi spice or reduce the amount of salt. In the end, drain the asparagus and combine them into the sauce and keep warm.

Making pancakes:
1. Separate the egg yolks from their egg whites and beat the egg whites with an electric hand mixer at high speed until the egg whites turn into a buoyant foam.

2. Then mix egg yolks together with flour with the mixer. Add in milk, sparkling mineral water, salt and nutmeg and whisk the dough until a smooth liquid is formed. Finally combine the egg whites with the pancake dough and use a spoon to mix the dough. There is no need to use an electric mixer at this point. It’s okay if there are lumps in the dough due to the stiff egg whites.

3. Heat some generous amount of oil in a large round pan on high heat. Add in about 4 large tablespoons of dough for each pancake and smooth the dough out on the pan to form a round shape. Use medium heat now as the pancake can brown quite easily. The left picture above shows the dough before being turned over. The picture on the right shows a lovely browned pancake after being flipped over.

4. Repeat step 3 until the pancake dough is used up. Serve warm with the asparagus.

Why sparkling mineral water you may ask? It’s a tip from T’s mom because the dough will be bubbly from the carbonated content to yield some spongy textured pancakes . By the way, you might want to keep the asparagus water in the fridge to be used as stock for some asparagus cream soup the next day . Guten appetit!