White Asparagus & Ricotta "Mini Malfatti" with a Ramp & Pea Pesto for the April 5 Star Makeover

The theme for the April 5 Star Makeover - hosted by the always-fabulous Natasha of 5 Star Foodie and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! - centers around a quintessential spring ingredient, white asparagus. As Natasha rightly points out, in Germany people are going nuts right about now for both the white and green varieties, and having just returned from a too-brief two days in Vienna, I can tell you that the Viennese are also asparagus-mad. It was easy to get inspired for this challenge being around so much asparagus love!

Bärlauch, literally bear's garlic, is a delicious wild garlic native to Central Europe, and like asparagus, it's currently turning up on many an Austrian chef's menu.  I wanted to get the flavor of this distinctive seasonal ingredient  in my asparagus dish, but it's simply not available in the U.S. I despaired of finding anything to recreate bärlauch's delicate bite, until I did some research and discovered that it's a close cousin of ramps, a wild leek that's found in my neck of the woods. Once picked, it only lasts a few days, and to get it you either need to forage for it or find a chef with a stash.

And then I discovered that an awesome  local restaurant, Bluegrass Tavern (I wrote about the chef in the Urbanite, you can check out that article here) was having a special one-day-only sidewalk market ... and that they were going to have some ramps. Oh, happy day! I got there early and scored four bunches:

Next stop: the grocery store, where I managed to grab the very last bunch of white asparagus in the place. Whew.

Now all that remained was to make my dish. Insofar as malfatti means "badly formed," I think my dish is aptly named. To be honest, it's not exactly what I originally had in mind - I wanted to make larger gnudi, but my mixture was too soft - and so  I had to adjust. According to Poppa Trix, who declared the dish a success,  it worked out well in the end, but I always have a hard time enjoying something that doesn't  come out exactly as I want. It's the control freak in me.

But, as you are not (I presume) suffering from a preconceived notion about my mini malfatti, I expect that you will be able to enjoy them just as Poppa Trix did, and so I will share the recipe here, along with a few tips that I learned the hard way.

Start by steaming a pound of white asparagus into mushy oblivion. Ring it out, and roast it at 200 degrees for about an hour to dry it out. Puree this. To this, add 1 1/2 cups of ricotta that has been drained overnight, 1/4 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, a few grinds of pepper, a dash of paprika, and 2 to 4 egg yolks, plus one egg.

Why 2 to 4 you ask? Well, it was the eggs that tripped me up. I was modeling the method on the Swiss chard gnudi I made here, which called for four egg yolks, but I didn't take into account the extra moisture the asparagus would bring to the table.  I dumped all the eggs in at once and was left with a mushy mess, to which I had to add more flour until it would bind. Instead, I should have started with two eggs and kept going until the mixture would hold together. When I tried to form my large gnudi, the poor things just collapsed like pancakes.

Assuming you achieve the proper consistency, you could make large quenelles, as I wanted to, or you could make smaller, robin's-egg-sized ones, as I did here. Simply scoop up a heaping teaspoon of the mixture, plop it into a wine glass that's been filled with 1 tablespoon of flour, and give it a swirl. (I outlined the process photographically here.)  Place the mini malfatti on a floured cookie tray and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. In small batches, plop them into vigorously boiling salted water and remove them immediately when they float.

Even though they weren't what I wanted, I must admit they were soft and light, and the flavor of the asparagus really shone through.  They went perfectly with my new favorite thing, ramp and pea pesto:

I adore this stuff, and could eat it with a spoon. And it's so simple. I used the greens from 2 bunches of ramps, along with a handful of the ramp bulbs, 1/2 cup of peas, 1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds, salt, pepper, and extra virgin olive oil. Just whizz it all together and adjust everything until it's the consistency of ... well, of pesto. The onion-y, garlicky bite of the ramps is offset by the sweetness of the peas and almonds.  This went so well with the subtle flavor of the asparagus malfatti, and the leftovers are fabulous on chicken, pasta, toast - anything!

Don't forget to check out all of the other awesome asparagus dishes - Natasha and Lazaro will post a round up on their respective blogs on Friday. Happy spring!

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!