🇩🇪 Germany and 🇦🇹 Austria · and Austria
SpargelsuppeGerman asparagus soup
A spring soup of white asparagus cooked in a stock made from its own peels and woody ends, thickened with a butter-and-flour roux and finished with cream, lemon and chervil, with asparagus pieces in the bowl.
Origin and history
Spargelsuppe belongs to the white-asparagus season in Germany and Austria, when fresh spears are sold in spring. lecker.de calls its version a grandmother's recipe, in which the peels are boiled with salt and sugar so the cooking liquid carries the asparagus flavour; Austrian and Swiss recipes also make the stock from peels or trimmings. The sources give no date or origin for the dish itself.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 1 h
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 1 kg2.2 lb white asparagus (weisser Spargel), peeled, woody ends cut off; keep every peel and end
- 1.25 liters5 1/4 cups water, for the peel stock
- 1 tsp salt, for the stock, plus more to taste
- 1 pinch sugar, for the stock, plus more to taste
- 50 g3 1/2 tbsp butter
- 50 g6 tbsp plain flour
- 200 ml3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp whipping cream (Sahne; Schlagobers in Austria)
- 2-3 tbsp lemon juice, to taste
- white pepper, freshly ground, to taste
- fresh chervil (Kerbel), chopped, to serve; chives work too
Method
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1. Wash the asparagus, peel it from just below the head downwards and cut off the woody ends. Keep all peels and ends.
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2. Bring the water to a boil with the salt and the pinch of sugar. Add the peels and ends, cover and simmer over medium heat for about 20 minutes.
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3. Meanwhile cut the peeled spears into bite-sized pieces, leaving the tips a little longer.
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4. Strain the stock into a clean pot, discarding the peels. Bring it back to a boil, add the asparagus pieces and cook for about 15 minutes, until tender.
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5. Lift the asparagus out into a bowl and measure 1 liter (4 1/4 cups) of the stock; keep it hot.
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6. Melt the butter in the soup pot over medium heat, stir in the flour and cook for a minute without letting it colour.
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7. Gradually whisk in the hot stock and the cream until smooth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
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8. Season with salt, white pepper, a little sugar and the lemon juice. Return the asparagus, heat through for a minute or two, and serve sprinkled with chervil.
Notes
- The peel stock is the point of the soup: lecker.de says simmering the peels with salt and sugar is what gives the soup its flavour. Simmer gently rather than boiling hard, and no longer than 15 to 20 minutes for the peels, or bitter notes can come out.
- A recipe from the Austrian food site gourmet.at uses the same idea with a smaller base: 1 litre of asparagus stock, green asparagus, softened onion, a little flour, Schlagobers and a little nutmeg. A Swiss radio recipe makes a smoother version: it purees cooked trimmings with the stock, adds onion and white wine or Prosecco, and thickens with a little cornstarch.
- If the soup is too thin, lecker.de suggests blending part of it with some asparagus pieces, or stirring in an egg yolk loosened with cream (do not boil it afterwards). For a smoother soup, blend half of the asparagus pieces and keep the rest whole.
- Make ahead: the asparagus stock keeps 2 to 3 days in the fridge and the finished soup about 3 days; if freezing, add the cream when reheating.
- Green asparagus gives the same kind of soup with a lighter stock, since it needs peeling only at the base.
Adapted from lecker.de, Spargelcremesuppe (Omas Grundrezept), SRF Radio SRF 1 Kochen, Spargelsuppe aus Abschnitten, and GOURMET (Austria), Spargelcremesuppe.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.