Asparagus salad
~ This is a great salad
- asparagus spears ~ a pound or so
- 1 cup chevre goat cheese
- 1/2 cup toasted chopped pecan pieces
Peel and blanch asparagus in boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Plunge in to an ice bath to stop cooking and keep nice and green. When cooled remove from water and drain well
Dressing / Vinaigrette
~ this is a lot of trouble but it is wonderful!! It is great on many other things like grilled fish too!
- 4 oranges 1 for the peel and 3 for juice
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 lemons 1 for peel and 1 1/2 for juice
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 6 tablespoons peanut oil
- 1 tablespoon flat leave parsley minced
- salt and pepper
Remove peeling from the 1 orange using a vegetable peeler or zester. Making sure to not get any of the white pith ~ it does not taste good. Cut peeling into very, very thin strips. Juice the remaining oranges strain out all seeds and pulp. Put juice, peel and sugar in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil Adjust heat to low simmer and reduce by 2/3 until mixture is syrupy this takes about 5 minutes, bring to room temp.
Remove lemon peel as above. Juice lemon and strain. In a bowl whisk orange mixture, lemon , lemon peel, oil mustard, salt and pepper ~ I will just put it all in a mason jar and shake really hard until light and creamy looking other wise you can whisk. To this point it can be made a day or two days ~ before serving add parsley.
Add asparagus on plater, top with toasted pecans, chevre cheese and vinaigrette Enjoy…this is really yummy!!
The one thing I’d change is to chop the asparagus into bite-sized pieces first. If I’m eating whole spears I like to pick them up and eat them like french fries.That would get a little messy with the vinaigrette.