Springtime "Carbonara" with Ramps and Asparagus

Spaghetti carbonara is one of those classic pasta recipes that you just don’t mess with. Pasta, eggs, Parmesan cheese, guanciale (or pancetta), salt and pepper: those are the only ingredients that should ever go into a carbonara. Don’t add parsley, don’t add peas, and please, please, please don’t add cream. So accept my sincere apologies for calling this dish a carbonara. I really wanted to avoid doing so; it contains heavy cream and smoked bacon—not to mention asparagus and ramps—but that’s what Andrew Carmellini calls it in Urban Italian, from which this recipe is liberally adapted (I substituted bacon for the speck that Carmellini calls for and asparagus for his sugar snap peas and English peas). I’m going to let Mr. Carmellini get away with calling it a carbonara because it is an excellent recipe; with a creamy sauce that clings to each strand of pasta and crispy pieces of cured beat, it has many of the characteristics that I love about carbonara, while the spring vegetables give the dish a more seasonal touch. Regardless of what you want to call it, it will please any carbonara lover out there.

Springtime “Carbonara” with Asparagus and Ramps
Serves 2

Ingredients:

• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 egg
• 1 handful of asparagus, cleaned, trimmed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
• ½ lb. spaghetti
• 4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped into ½-inch pieces
• 1 bunch of ramps, cleaned, roots removed, and cut into thirds
• ½ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, plus more for serving
• black pepper, freshly ground
• salt, to taste

Directions:

1. Beat the cream and the egg together in a small bowl until they are well blended. Set aside.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While waiting for the asparagus to boil, fill a medium bowl with ice water. Add the asparagus to the boiling water and cook until the asparagus turns bright green, 1 to 2 minutes, then use a slotted spoon to immediately plunge the asparagus in the ice water so that it stops cooking.
3. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook for one minute less than the package directions indicate. Meanwhile, continue with the rest of the recipe.
4. Heat a deep-sided skillet or sauté pan over medium-high eat. Add the bacon to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until the bacon begins to crisp, about 3 minutes.
5. Add the ramps to the pan and continue to cook until the leaves are wilted and the bulbs begin to brown. Reduce the heat to low, and wait for the pasta to finish cooking, stirring the ramps periodically.
6. Once the pasta is al dente, drain it, reserving a ½ cup of the cooking water.
7. Add the asparagus and the reserved pasta water to the skillet. Stir in the pasta, then the cream and egg mixture. There should be just enough liquid in the skillet to coat the pasta, and the sauce should not be watery. If necessary, increase the heat and reduce the sauce to the desired consistency.
8. Remove the skillet from the heat. Stir in the cheese and a generous amount of ground pepper. Taste for salt. Serve the pasta immediately, with a small amount of Pecorino Romano cheese grated over the top.  

Asparagus Risotto

Risotto is one of those dishes that I have always been wanting to add to my repertoire. It's known to be one of the more labor-intensive dishes, requiring constant stirring and fairly little room for error. And as with any labor-intensive, finicky recipe, it is a dish that is a rite of passage for all chefs; once you have successfully cooked risotto, you reach a new culinary skill level.

My first attempt at risotto was a disaster, resulting in crunchy, flavorless rice. The other night, determined both to use up the asparagus I purchased from the Greenmarket and to give risotto one more try, I came across this recipe for asparagus risotto from The Amateur Gourmet to find out if I was finally ready to take my cooking to the next level. Fortunately for my pride as a cook, my second attempt at risotto was an overwhelming success, no doubt thanks to the terrific step-by-step instructions from The Amateur Gourmet.

The asparagus stalk puree is the key to this recipe, ensuring that every bite is filled with the great flavors of the season's first asparagus and that the dish has a wonderful green hue. The dish is the perfect celebration of spring and left me with little doubt that I could easily be a vegetarian if spring lasted all year round. Despite the small number of ingredients, this dish was a struggle for me, with the rice taking twice as long to become tender and creamy as the recipe indicated; after stirring constantly for nearly 40 minutes in my hot kitchen, I had worked up quite a sweat. However, the end result was well worth the effort.

Fried Soft-Shell Crabs with Ramps and Asparagus

I was inspired to make this dinner after reading this interview of Michael Anthony, chef of Gramercy Tavern. He says that his last meal would consist of soft shell crabs and ramps. I decided to up Chef Anthony a notch by including some roasted asparagus on the plate. You can't get much more seasonal than this dish, and I was somewhat annoyed by it's success, knowing that it would likely be next year before I have a chance to make it again.

This marked the first time I have ever cooked soft-shell crabs, and I was impressed with how easy they were to make and how well they turned out. Don't be intimidated by the thought of throwing live crabs into hot oil. My technique was from David Pasternack's The Young Man & The Sea. While heating up a large skillet filled with about a half cup of olive oil, I mixed together Wondra flour, corn starch and salt and pepper, and set aside another small bowl filled with milk. I dipped the crabs in the milk, then in the flour mixture, shaking off any excess. The crabs then went into the skillet, about 3 minutes per side. After a sprinkling of sea salt, they were ready to eat.