Sometime during the first two weeks of April it turned from winter to early spring in New York. The worst of the weather slunk offstage, green buds appeared on the trees, and the daffodils poked up their heads and looked around. The change has roared in like an express train since then, and this week the crabapple and cherry trees look like pink poodles. Last week the first over-wintered greens—collards, broccoli rabe, and mustard—made their appearance at the Greenmarket. Oh, and the first ramps too. (I should probably be embarrassed to admit that I broke into an involuntary run when I saw the sign at Rick Bishop’s farm stand, but it’s true.) Then, this past weekend, the first of the asparagus appeared. I bought four pounds—enough for three days. It’s spring at last.
At Migliorelli’s stand on Saturday morning I overheard a slightly cranky older couple doing their shopping. “Shall we buy some asparagus, dear?” “Of course we should. We have to make ramp and asparagus soup.” Of course, I thought, and I have to make it too. Never mind that I’ve never heard of it before. It sounds brilliant.
Back when he was just a fabulous cook, Tom Colicchio wrote a book called Think Like a Chef that tried to unwrap the process of creating recipes by meditating on techniques and ingredients. In one section, by way of illustration, he gives half a dozen recipes for three sets of three ingredients that he loves in combination. One of the trios is ramps, asparagus, and morels, from which he makes a ragout, a pasta dish, a gratin, a soup, and poultry and fish dishes. When I first read it, this seemed magical to me, but what Colicchio is talking about is simple at its core: Learn enough technique to coax out what you crave, and cook what’s fresh and at hand. Asparagus and ramps are in the market at the same time; of course they belong in everything you make.
I haven’t made that soup yet, but I did make a spectacular pasta with those same ingredients. It started, as so many good things do, with a few diced pieces of bacon rendered in a skillet. (The bacon is savory just like morels are.) I separated the delicate ramp leaves from the robust ramp bulbs, then pan-roasted the bulbs in the bacon fat until they were brown and soft. Into the pan went a pile of asparagus stalks, sliced thin on the bias, and the tops in larger pieces. When the asparagus was just starting to soften I wilted the shredded ramp leaves, deglazed the pan with a little white wine, then added just enough cream to bind everything together and let it all kind of stew in there for a minute or two. The sauce was sweet and sharp from the ramps, slightly smoky and indulgent from the cream and bacon, but fresh from the asparagus. I served it on a cool, rainy night, over dried linguine cooked al dente, when it was rich enough to soothe but bright with the promise of a new season.
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