Per person 400- to 500-g green asparagus, 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary needles, 4 tablespoons olive oil; dry red wine, salt, pepper. New potatoes; lamb chops.
Cut the well-washed asparagus spears in half lengthwise. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and sprinkle in the rosemary needles. Add the halved asparagus and fry briefly on all sides, season with salt and pepper. Deglaze with wine and cover. Be careful that the asparagus does not become too soft.
New potatoes and grilled lamb chops are delicious with this.
It is most simple to grow organic asparagus,.
tells Peter Werth: no pesticides, herbicides, insecticides; no chemical fertilizer, instead of castor bean meal and after the harvest proficient manure.
The young plants are helped with large amounts of compost on the jump. This way, the asparagus plants yield less, but for longer, uch can fetch up to 30% higher prices for organic asparagus. Up to this point, this sounds so good that one wonders why there is still asparagus from conventional production at all.
But that is not all, because after the harvest it is called hand put on, to the hoe namely, to get in two passes the "Beikraut", as Werth calls the weeds, master. This extra work, however, also brings yield, because Werth can head his organic asparagus for about 10 years, whereas in conventional cultivation, the plants are already exhausted after about 7 years.
If the night temperatures rise to 10, even to 12 degrees, then there is no holding back, the asparagus stretches its tender little heads, and then it is called stung, which at Werth for years women from Croatia and Hungary provide.
In appearance, organic asparagus does not differ from conventional, even the characteristics of the commercial classes are the same, but not the taste. Asparagus farmer Werth praises his as clearly finer and less bitter, also the cooking water does not foam as much, and customers who have once got to know Werth asparagus always come back, even from Wiesbaden or even the Taunus. The same goes for the organic strawberries.
The markets are looked after by Werth's wife Gilda Chitunda, an architect from Brazil, where the two met during his agricultural studies. The markets also feature a specialty of the house: Asparagus heads, white and purple, which do not require peeling, 400 g cost 3 . Mother Werth prepares a popular, colourful soup from them, which is well worth trying.
His regular customers not only asked for white asparagus, many also enjoyed his green asparagus, which is by no means only obtained from the shoots of white asparagus, which take on a green colour in the light. Werth, on the other hand, grows special varieties, called Snow White and Steiniva. With justifiable pride, Patron and Stecher present a jointly developed preparation that is as interesting as it is delicious and, to top it off, extremely easy to realize: green asparagus with rosemary.
Bioland-Hof
Peter Werth and Gilda Chitunda
Draustr. 47
64347 Griesheim-St.Stephan (near Darmstadt)
Phone: 06155-61786
Fax: 880349
Opening hours: in season Mon-Fri 16-19, Sat 10-12 u. 16-19, Sun 10-12 open
Markets in Darmstadt and Eberstadt
from Waldemar Thomas