Fresh asparagus and crab soup (Súp măng tây cua)
Loaded with asparagus and crab, this soup is elegant looking and delicately flavored. Vietnamese consider it special-occasion fare because it features asparagus, a pricey ingredient introduced by the French as an imported canned good. In Vietnamese, asparagus is măng tây, literally “French bamboo,” an apt name as both asparagus and bamboo shoots grow quickly.
Resourceful Viet cooks often maximize the asparagus flavor by adding the spears and their canning liquid to the soup. But the taste is nonetheless rather flat, and canned asparagus is mushy. To achieve a strong asparagus flavor, I use fresh asparagus to prepare the soup.
from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors by Andrea Nguyen
I can vouch for the use of fresh.
And so for day 2714
19.05.2014