First asparagus

Nigel Slater reckons that 'only a prude can ignore the sexual overtones of asparagus officinalis.' Perhaps that explains my even-greater-than-usual desire to get my hands on the first of the British stuff this year. Although, seeing as Slater never seems to have met a piece of food he wouldn't like to fuck, perhaps we shouldn't take the psychoanalysis too far.

Anyway, here it is. Normally I just boil my first asparagus of the year and smother it in melting butter, but I had to eat a proper supper sometime, so this is the recipe I made. If you're using supermarket thin-cut water-pumped bacon, you'll need considerably more than the 6 rashers of thick-cut dry-cured butcher's bacon I used.

Ingredients

200g asparagus
6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
100g (ish) cherry tomatoes

Method

Heat your oven to 200 celsius and get a baking tray out of the cupboard. Snap any woody ends off the asparagus and drizzle with a little oil. Cut each rasher of bacon into two, and roll up, then snuggle them among the asparagus. Place in the oven for 10 minutes.

Take them out after this time and scatter the tomatoes among the spears and bacon. If the tips of the asparagus look like they might be burning, rearrange the bacon to cover them. Return to the over for a further 5 minutes or so.

Munch with plenty of crusty bread to soak up any juices.


No picture, this time because I munched so fast I didn't have time to take any. I burnt my mouth as a result, so I've already been punished for this sin.


PS. Sorry about the Slater quip. I love him and his cooking very much, but the food/fuck alliteration was too good not to say.


2011 edit

I always make this recipe at least once a year, and last night was the night this year. I am one of those people who are simply incapable of following a recipe (yes, even one of my own), and so I had to have a bit of a tinker around the edges. I used thin slices of pancetta instead of traditional English thick-cut streaky bacon, and wrapped the slices around the tops of around half the asparagus (so, around 6 spears and slices out of 12 spears total).

The effect is gorgeous. Somehow, the pancetta traps the steam coming off the tips of asparagus, and they steam in their own juices to a melting softness, giving a lovely contrast with the crispy pancetta and grilled stalks.