Asparagus risotto

This is the second of my favourite main-course ways of eating asparagus.

1 tbs olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup (125 ml by volume) risotto rice
250 ml cooking white wine
500 ml stock (chicken, if you're not vegetarian, or vegetable if you are; cube is fine, although fresh always nicer)
About 25g butter
A nice amount of Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tray asparagus + any tough stalk ends you saved from previous recipe

Cut the tough stalks of the asparagus, and put them into a saucepan with the stock; bring to the boil and simmer while the rest of this is happening. 

Put the olive oil, onion and garlic into a pan and cook gently until transparent.  Now add the rice and stir well, and then add the wine.  Bring back to the boil and simmer for 5-8 minutes until it is all absorbed, stirring frequently.  Now add half the stock and continue.  Meanwhile, cook the asparagus - steaming is easiest, but however you prefer.

When the stock has been absorbed, add the rest of it.  Put the now-cooked stems into a food processor and blitz with a little water (or retained stock) until you have a very smooth puree.

  Now continue cooking the rice until all the stock has been absorbed, and then add the asparagus puree, the butter and the cheese, and beat vigorously until all is smooth and gloopy and delicious.

Serve topped with the steamed asparagus.

Serves 2

Asparagus with pasta and pine nuts

The asparagus season is finally here!  Actually, strictly speaking it starts next week, on 23 April, but British asparagus is already beginning to be found in the supermarkets, and I treated us to two trays thereof (only 6-7 spears in each tray, and they were expensive, but worth it).   1Some people just want to eat it as a starter, steamed with Hollandaise sauce, and why not?  Very delicious.  But sometimes you want it as a main meal, and this post and the next are two of my favourite ways of having it.

1 tray British (or local to you) asparagus
40-50 g pine nuts (Lidl sells them in 40g sachets, which is what I used)
100-120 g pasta of your choice
About 50g butter
About - well- a nice amount of Parmesan cheese, grated.

Put the pasta on to cook, and while this is happening, fry the pine nuts in half the butter, stirring all the time, until everything is nicely browned.

Then you can add the rest of the butter and fry the asparagus in the same pan, turning it frequently.  Or, if you prefer, you can steam it - up to you.  I fried ours yesterday, and it was lush.  NB, if you cut off the tough ends of the asparagus, save them for the next recipe!

Mix the pine nuts, cheese and drained pasta together, and top with the cooked asparagus.  Yummy.

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Serves 2.

Stewed squid

The thing about squid is that either you need to just barely show it the stove, as in a stir-fry or battered squid rings, or else you need to stew it thoroughly.  Anything in between and you have india-rubber!

This was a concatenation of several recipes, but I used too much liquid and it came out more like soup than stew - none the worse for that, I may say.  I thought the beans would absorb more than they did.

About 250 g squid - whole, if possible, but rings is fine if that's what you have.
1 large onion
2 carrots
1 leek
1 chili pepper (optional)
1/2 courgette (this would have been a whole one, but I found a half in the fridge that wanted using)
Several small potatoes
1 sloosh tomato paste
1 tin tomatoes or passata
200 ml cooking wine (I used white, as there was some open)
1/2 cup dried pinto beans, soaked overnight
A little cooking oil
Stock cube and other seasoning, as liked.

Peel and chop the vegetables - I didn't peel the potatoes, but did slice them - and do feel free to substitute any or all of them.  Many recipes include celery, but we are not fans of cooked celery, so I tend to substitute leek.  I did think of using a "casserole mix" as Lidl sells pre-prepared vegetables you can use in a casserole, and which make very good soup, too, but had too many vegetables in the fridge to justify doing that.

Sweat the vegetables in the cooking oil,

then add the rest of the ingredients.

I then added 500 ml water, which turned out to be far too much as I was using my Instant Pot for this.  I think probably 200 ml would have been ample, maybe even less, but I hadn't pre-cooked the beans (if I had, I probably wouldn't have added any extra water).  Then cook on high pressure for 20 minutes, or, if you are not using a pressure cooker, simmer for about an hour.