I can turn roasted vegetables into a very freezer-friendly pureed soup that can also function as a pasta sauce. Asparagus is fine as a frittata ingredient. I’ve used a vegetable peeler to make asparagus noodles.
My asparagus go to is pretty simple, olive oil in a castiron skillet, roast whole, smashed cloves of garlic in the oil until it turns pretty brown. Remove garlic and add asparagus. Mince garlic while it cooks. Cook for about 5-6 minutes on medium, finish with salt, peppper, return minced garlic to the pan and a shot of lemon juice
Asparagus steams well between a couple damp paper towels in the microwave for a few minutes if you want to try something easier than grilling.
As far as toppings, we usually just use our home made vinaigrette that we use for salads too. If it’s a special occasion, the miso bearnaise sauce on Serious Eats is absolutely killer. A standard hollandaise, or perhaps a poached egg and some parmesan reggiano, are also delicious and not too hard.
Asparagus goes great in a risotto, and Serious Eats also has a good recipe for gnocchi with asparagus and prosciutto. You can peel it lengthwise with a vegetable peeler and mix the peelings into a salad.
go-to asparagus is tossed in oil salt and herbs and put in the oven until done. nothing else needed
Olive oil, salt and pepper. In oven at 400 F maybe 15 minutes depending on thickness. Turning half way through.
Jacque Pépin peels the thicker part to match the thinner part instead of breaking off the hard part. I break off the hard part still. I’m wasteful.
That’s my go to side dish. For a nice treat, I’ll make Serious Eats immersion blender Hollandaise to go with it. :
Quick Immersion Blender Hollandaise Recipe (seriouseats.com)
Steam to tender crisp then stir fry in crispy bacon, however much fat you want, and garlic.
Oh, put it in quiche!
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This reminded me of another popular use in our house, it’s actually a good topping on a white pizza. We made a light pizza brushed with olive oil and garlic, topped with aspargus and mushrooms and a little cheese (mozza and Parm), very good.
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Wrap in prosciutto and sizzle ‘til prosc is crispy. Not too much prosc - it’s salty. Shave on a bit of pecorino. My family hoovers these up as starter nibbles.
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I’ve often felt I need to create a cooking bad food thread to post in.
Lately I’ve been making a sauce with gochujang, natural peanut butter (just peanuts and salt), soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar. It’s good on every protein so far and even works just on some plain cheap-ass ramen. I like it, but I feel wrong.
I imagine that this would be very good poured on top of a bowl of cold rice noodles, cut veggies and crushed peanuts
This is, approximately, tamarind-less satay sauce, subbing in the gochujang for something more Thai or Indonesian. You are hitting a ton of basic flavor notes - salty, savory, sour, spicy, funky - so I am not surprised it is delicious. It’s not far from something you’d get in a Southeast Asian grandma’s kitchen. Not bad food at all.
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That makes sense, but I should also say you have to be careful with the PB. It goes from an interesting note to overpowering and gross pretty quick. Gochujang is the main element.
Here is what started me down this weird path:
I always cut the PB way down on that recipe too. I made that for a quick lunch pretty often during the pandemic.
Here’s a Thai sauce that would be pretty hard to distinguish from what you’re doing:
It subs tamarind and curry paste for the rice vinegar and gochujang, but those two pairs of ingredients have a ton in common flavor-wise. I bet you could fool a Thai grandmother that yours wasn’t just some other Thai grandmother’s take on the sauce.
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I’m making foccacia. Need half sheet pan. Internet says that is 18x13 but somehow my full is 21x15 and my small is 16x12. Which would you use?
A literal cup o noodles restaurant just opened here. Seems odd but I am curious.
If it’s Shin, shovel it in,
If it’s Top, it’s gonna flop.
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