Asparagus season is here!

Photo: © childsdesign

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The wonderful thing about eating seasonally is that it really makes an occasion out of consuming the best produce. The British asparagus season is finally upon us and we've enjoyed the building anticipation before it finally arrive in the shops.
Foreign asparagus is available all year round and it does somewhat diminish the specialness of it, plus you really can't top the British variety.

From planting the crowns,  it takes around a cycle of two years before the asparagus reaches maturity and is good enough to harvest. Once fully flourishing though, the spears can be cut after which it takes only 24 hours for a new shoot to appear and grow to an appreciable length. After a slow start it goes off like a rocket!

We discovered that it tastes so much better if you roast it.
The flavour becomes concentrated, something that boiling takes away. Just get the oven nice and hot, put the spears into an ovenproof dish, drizzle with some extra virgin cold pressed rapeseed oil, pop in the oven for about 10 minutes and you have perfectly cooked asparagus.
For a recipe using asparagus cooked in this way, try this recipe using wild venison chorizo from Great Glen Game, which complements the minerally taste of the asparagus so well.

Asparagus Tip: To keep the spears fresh treat them as you would cut flowers. Trim off a small amount from the bottom of the stems, place them in a jug of water and store in the fridge.