What is the proper way to trim green asparagus?

Question

I've heard of several approaches to cutting green asparagus to remove the woody ends from the bottom which are no good to eat. In general, none seem to take account of the thickness, or the age or freshness. For instance:

• Alton Brown recommends grabbing the asparagus from either end and bending together, creating a tighter apex until it naturally snaps at the "magic point".
• My mom's approach is just to take off about 1/5 of the bottom with a knife regardless of shape or apparent age
• In fact, in some episodes of BBC Masterchef, the Professionals, I noticed that the chefs will trim or peel the exterior only around the bottom 1/5 of the asparagus. I've been totally unable to replicate this method, it usually snaps off the whole end - could they perhaps trim the asparagus after cooking?

Answer 1

So, first, let's look at what you're doing when you trim asparagus. Like most other green "stalk" vegetables, as asparagus gets larger and older, the stalks get more fibrous as a way of supporting the plant. In addition to asparagus, this is true of broccoli, kale, and many other vegetables. One way to avoid this fibrousness is to eat very young "baby" plants. For example, if you simply buy asparagus that are pencil-thin or smaller, you often don't need to trim them at all.

If you do need to trim, though, Serious Eats covers techniques in some detail. The "snap at the natural breaking point" thing for asparagus is a pervasive cooking myth. It doesn't hold up under testing, and tends to result in removing much more of the asparagus than just the fibrous portion ... up to 50% according to Cook's Illustrated.

I trim my asparagus with a knife. In my personal experience, the best indicator of where the fibrous portion ends is to look at the color of the asparagus; the fibrous portion is usually paler, shading to white at the bottom. This can mean trimming some individual stalks separately.

In other words: your mom is one-up on Alton Brown, here.

As both you and Cook's Illustrated note, there's an alternative, which is to peel the asparagus. The inedible fibers form mostly in the skin and outer flesh of the asparagus, while the core of the stalk remains tender, just as it does in broccoli. And just like broccoli, you can remove these fibers with a sharp peeler or paring knife and still cook and eat the core. Personally, I rarely do this because it's a lot of work and here on the West Coast of the US asparagus is pretty affordable. But it's very common, even standard, in Europe.

Answer 2

Two of your methods are the same (you may misremember Alton Brown's method)

Your mother's technique (and my mother's) and Alton Brown's preferred methods are all the same. You likely misremember the episode -- or maybe are referring to a different show or book. In the asparagus episode of Good Eats he does mention the bend method, but he then goes on to explain his own preferred method: cutting off about a fifth of the end. Where he differs from maternal technique (and I like this idea) is that he suggests you might consider slicing the next inch into thin discs as a flavorful garnish.

A transcript of the relevant scene from Season 14, episode 3, Age of Asparagus:

"Typically, asparagus must be trimmed of its woody lower stem. The problem is the amount of material that needs pruning depends on the specific specimens under consideration. Now traditionalists will tell you that each spear will signal where it wants to be severed simply by bending it to the break point [demonstrates]. The problem is I'm lazy. And on top of that, I want my asparagus to be uniform in length, so here's what I do. Just bundle it up and apply a produce-department rubber band to hold the spears together. This may have actually come on your asparagus, but you didn't store it on there, did you? Good. Okay, now I measure the average length of the bunch here, 10 inches. Now I divide that by five, roughly, and it turns out to be two. So two inches will be taken straight off of the bunch, and we will feed that to compost. Now compost is my potbellied pig. He's around here someplace.

"Now I'm going to assume that the next inch will be tasty, but still a little on the flossy side. So I'm going to slice it very, very thin, into rounds. And these we will put on salads, soups, chicken salad's really good, or even yogurt for dips. I'm not going to waste that flavor. And that leaves with us seven inches of spear ready for further processing."

Answer 3

Don't trim at all, then eat as much as feels good

Just an alternative approach, which is much less fancy but very practical if you are fine with the whole asparaguses on your plate.

Maybe peel them, cook them whole, then just start eating them at the tip, and for each individual bite make a decision if it is time to toss the rest of the stick (which I would just leave sitting on the plate until I'm finished).

As said, not very fancy, but very low effort and wastes the least amount of asparagus possible.

Answer 4

I've often wondered about this too and developed my own method which I've not seen published.

My goal is to snap off as little as possible to have high yield and so than all the remaining parts are fully enjoyable.

Starting at the cut end work your way up until your fingernail can puncture the asparagus, then snap at that point.

Rarely (but occasionally) the snapped off part is substantial. In this situation, instead of snapping, I peel from this point down. And of course cut and discard any parts of the stalk that you deem to be inedible.