Cooked white asparagus is stringy
Everytime I cook white asparagus it has these strings in it, which are not really pleasant. Is it normal thing? Or I am doing something wrong? I peel asparagus and cook it in boiling water for 15 minutes in boiling water.
Best Answer
Contrary to popular belief, older asparagus is not what causes larger stalks and larger stalks are not tougher than thin stalks. The size of the stalk is determined by the variety of asparagus.
As cited in this article in the NYTimes , asparagus will start to get tough immediately upon cutting. It starts to toughen at the bottom and continues up the stalk. The asparagus need to be chilled very soon after cutting to prevent this.
Most of this loss of sweetness and toughening happens in the first day after harvest. Farmers can minimize it by chilling new-cut asparagus right away. But a delay of just four hours between harvest and chilling causes the spears to toughen significantly. So does allowing the chilled spears to warm up to 60 degrees or more in a grocery display or at the farmers’ market.
So, in short the toughness is most likely caused by improper storage when the asparagus is harvested.
We have two asparagus beds and we chose a large stalk variety as it seemed to have a little more flavor (to us). Once or twice we have let the stalks grow to over 2' long and they were still tender. That said, when we cut them, they are immediately refrigerated and stay chilled until we cook them.
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Quick Answer about "Cooked white asparagus is stringy"
Usually stringiness is caused by not peeling them enough. Internal stringiness might be caused by overcooking the asparagus (assuming the asparagus is otherwise fine, and not woody). I only cook them for around 8 minutes in boiling water, then take them of the heat, and let them rest in the water for another 8 minutes.Why is white asparagus stringy?
The more difficult problem is when it gets stringy throughout the entire spear. This happens because the spears continuously convert their sugars into a substance (call lignin) that causes woodiness. The longer asparagus is stored, the more sugars they convert. Cooking doesn't make them less stringy.Why is my cooked asparagus stringy?
But the spears also lose much of their sugars, using them to toughen their wounded ends with an increasingly fibrous sheath, which lies just under the green skin and quickly becomes too stringy to chew.Is white asparagus stringy?
White asparagus has a thick outer skin that, unlike green asparagus, must be peeled before using as it is too stringy to eat. The base should also be removed as it is too woody to chew.How do I make sure asparagus is not stringy?
This can be accomplished by holding each spear, one hand at the base, the other a couple of inches up the stalk and bending until the stalk naturally snaps off. Once you get the hang of this process, it will go very quickly and prevent your cooked asparagus from being tough or stringy at the ends.How to cook white asparagus – Asparagus recipe
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Answer 2
Usually stringiness is caused by not peeling them enough. Internal stringiness might be caused by overcooking the asparagus (assuming the asparagus is otherwise fine, and not woody).
I only cook them for around 8 minutes in boiling water, then take them of the heat, and let them rest in the water for another 8 minutes.
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