Shallot and Blanched Asparagus Salad

This is a really easy salad recipe. I'm unsure if recipe is the accurate word when you're talking about salads. It's more of a guideline. You can follow this exactly or follow your whims. I will be truly impressed if you can screw up a salad.


Ingredients:

Lettuce
Blanched Asparagus
Shallots
Sun dried tomatoes
Red bell pepper
Salt and Pepper to taste
Olive oil






There's a long-standing philosophical debate that divides salad culture regarding the basic preparation of salads. I think it even predates Socrates. He didn't have the audacity to get involved with this heated discussion and I will take his cowardly example. Whether you want to have all of the ingredients prepped and ready before you start to embark upon your creation or if you want to start with some ingredients in the bowl and simply add to your conglomeration of ingredients is up to you entirely. Each technique speaks volumes about you as a person and I refuse to weigh in to either side of the argument. You either make salads like Camus or you make salad like Kant. You will be judged accordingly.

Tips:


For this salad I used the olive oil that was in the jar of sun dried tomatoes I had for a light salad dressing. When you do that a few times you can just add more olive oil to your jar and let it get infused with the sun dried tomatoes.



Instructions:

Take the aforementioned ingredients and put them in a bowl. Once all the ingredients are in the bowl you should drizzle the olive oil over the top of it all.

Burnt Orange on an Asparagus Bed with Shallots

 

I've learned that there's no better way to end a conversation than to say that you've started a cooking blog. Maybe there is though: mention the blog is dedicated to shallots and asparagus. Even polite people are overcome with a glazed look of apathy. They find excuses to stop talking to you. It's a little impressive. So if you're reading this I probably know you personally and I was able to compel you through guilt, shame or barter to visit this page. Thank you. Your sacrifice is appreciated. It was brought to my attention that most of my recipes include shallots and asparagus. This is my effort to database them all into one concise location. I am hopefully going to have a new recipe published every Monday. Please feel free to check back to see what I have come up with. Naturally though I am going to assume that if you become a regular, then I must know something really shameful about you. Enjoy!

I wanted to just start with one of my favorite shallot and asparagus recipes. It's really easy, it's delicious and it's almost impossible to do wrong. The way I prefer to do it is to use an orange and to over-do it just a little to give it all a burnt, blackened feel. It doesn't matter what you use as long as you use something with some citric acid. I've tried most everything that's laying around the kitchen at one point or another. Oranges have been my favorite. You can add a clove of garlic if you like or whatever spices you're prone to use.  Cooking by recipe is like painting by number so feel free to experiment and add your own interpretation.

w/ lemon

Ingredients:

1 bunch of Asparagus
1 large shallot or two moderate sized shallots
1 whole orange sliced
Salt/Pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil

w/ lime

w/ cherry tomatoes

w/ orange

Instructions:

Cut the coarse ends off the asparagus. Lay across pan. I like to use cast iron but a cookie sheet will suffice. Take chopped shallots and sprinkle them over the asparagus. Add salt and pepper. Drizzle the olive oil over it all. Put the slices of orange across the top. Broil for 8-10 minutes, or at least until the citrus slices start to blacken.