First, peel the asparagus and trim the ends. Cut off the tips and put them aside. Now, cut the asparagus spears into pieces.
Heat the cream in a saucepan and add the cut pieces of asparagus. Leave them to simmer on moderate heat for 15 minutes. Next, cut open the vanilla pod with a knife and add it to the cream and asparagus whole. Salt well and add a little pepper.
Now, soak the gelatine in cold water and pre-heat your oven to 220 °C (conventional setting). Simultaneously, fill a saucepan with water to make a bain-marie.
For the speck-and-cheese crackers, line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Use a metal ring if you have one. You can make the dish without a ring, too. Chop the speck very finely and mix it with grated parmesan and plenty of black pepper in a bowl. Spoon individual, cracker-sized portions of the speck-and-cheese mixture into the metal ring on the baking tray and place the tray on the middle rack of the oven. Bake the crackers for 10–15 minutes at 220 °C, then leave them on the tray to cool.
In the next step, put the asparagus tips in a bowl and place the bowl on top of the bain-marie. Add salt, lime juice and some lime zest to the asparagus tips in the bowl and steam them on the bain-marie for 10 minutes.
Take the vanilla pod out of the cream. Remove the gelatine from the cold water, squeeze all the water out of it and add it to the hot cream. Now, puree the asparagus and the boiled cream. To finish making the asparagus panna cotta, pour the hot mass into glasses and refrigerate them for about 30 minutes.
Add a little sugar to the asparagus tips so that they caramelise slightly. Serve them on top of the panna cotta. Garnish the panna cotta with a cracker and a thin slice of speck. Finally, sprinkle some chopped chives over the dish.
We recommend a South Tyrolean Pinot Blanc to accompany this starter.
