Reviving asparagus

Thanks, Jean, for sending this through!

Can limp asparagus be revived?

In-season asparagus should be tender, sweet, and flavorful. But sometimes the supermarket pickings are less than stellar—usually because they’ve been stored too long and have dried out. We wondered if there was a way to rescue those tired stalks.

We tried refrigerating bunches of asparagus three ways (always beginning by trimming an inch off the ends): wrapped in damp paper towels in an unsealed zipper-lock bag; cut side down in a cup of water with an unsealed bag over the top; and cut side down in a cup of sugar water with an unsealed bag over the top. The next day we steamed and tasted all three samples. Both water-soaked batches were sweeter and juicier than the towel-wrapped one, which had the toughest stalks and a slightly bitter flavor. We couldn’t detect any significant difference between the asparagus soaked in sugar water and its plain-water counterpart.

So if you end up with asparagus that needs some sprucing up, trim the ends and store the stalks in cool water overnight—they will wake up the next day refreshed and ready to be eaten. [Cooks Illustrated]

Dorie Greenspan has also just recently posted a tip-sheet on picking asparagus on her blog.