Who doesn’t want an easy and delicious vegetable side dish? Here’s the recipe for a wonderful asparagus treat that can stand alone as a beautiful starter, be a stalwart partner alongside a steak or other big protein, or even serve as a centerpiece for a vegetarian meal. The roasted asparagus is simple, savory, al denté and foodie-worthy.
Recipe: Roasted Salsa Macha Asparagus with Hollandaise
Serves 4 as a first course or side dish, or two as a main course for a vegetarian meal.
Ingredients
- 1 bunch asparagus (½ to ¾ lb.), washed and trimmed of stem
- ~1 tbsp. salsa macha (see note)
- coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper
- hollandaise sauce (see recipe here)
- optional garnish – grape tomatoes, halved
Cooking Instructions
Make the hollandaise (see below). (You will have leftover hollandaise, which is a good thing.)
Preheat oven to 450℉. Arrange asparagus on a baking sheet so that the stalks have room to “breathe” and don’t crowd each other. Brush them with salsa mocha and then sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Roast in the oven for 8 minutes, then increase heat to broil and continue to cook for 1-2 more minutes, watching carefully to ensure that the asparagus is browned slightly but doesn’t burn. (Thicker stalks will take longer.)
Plate the asparagus immediately and serve with the hollandaise, adding freshly ground pepper and more salt, if desired.
Hollandaise
The super-easy hollandaise recipe is in the blog at the link below.
Join Me in the Kitchen
Simple ingredients make some of the best dishes. And of course, I had a glass of chardonnay while preparing the meal.
The Backstory
I was on my own tonight and just wanted a bright and flavorful veggie for dinner. (That might be because I over-indulged at lunch on leftovers of new lemony braised chicken dish I’m testing, but shhhhh – don’t tell anyone. I would like to maintain plausible deniability and I will NOT be stepping on the scale tomorrow.)
The Grill-Meister was playing cards with friends this evening, so I was a solo diner. I had some leftover hollandaise from last night’s broccoli and my diminished appetite – what to do? Even though I wasn’t really hungry, the hollandaise was whispering my name, again and again (it might be my favorite sauce), and I searched the vegetables crisper drawers in the refrigerator to find an appropriate accompaniment (yes, I know it sounds like I think the hollandaise is the main thing, and that’s actually accurate). I was beyond delighted to find a bunch of asparagus.
I would always prefer to spice up a dish, and salsa macha seemed like an easy and super-delicious way to make this dish much more sophisticated and nuanced, and to provide the necessary unctuousness to ensure that the asparagus wouldn’t be dry and shriveled. I ALWAYS have salsa macha in my fridge, courtesy of one of our favorite vendors at our local farmers’ market, Lolita Specialty Foods. LOVE THIS SAUCE!!!! (You can order it if you aren’t within shouting distance of our farmers’ market.) So that was an easy choice for treating my asparagus right.
From that point, it was easy to design this dish. Fresh veggie, salsa macha, hot oven, fab creamy hollandaise: BOOM!
© 2024, Glover Gardens
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