What to Cook Tonight #78

Fresh, easy flavours for Spring — an elegant Shaved Asparagus Salad to savour the best of the season, a wickedly delicious Roasted Cauliflower Cacio e Pepe, and some fab Anchovy & Radish Sandwiches.

Hello hello,

We hope you are all eating well and keeping well!

Our first recipe for you this week is an ode to spring and her delicate produce, which needs little more than a squeeze of lemon and a splash of extra-virgin olive oil to come to life.

Now is the time to enjoy raw asparagus — young, tender, and sweet, when very thinly sliced it makes a wonderfully elegant and refreshing salad.

Shaved Asparagus Salad

Like most salads, you can use this as a rough guide to interpret and adapt as you please. If you have some sweet baby fennel that you want to very thinly slice and add — do it! A handful of rocket or watercress? Also very welcome. Sugar snap peas and their tendrils? Yes please.

As we mentioned last week, we like to use a microplane zester to finely zest the outermost pith of a lemon. Use a sharp mandolin or vegetable peeler to carefully slice your asparagus and radishes. When using a mandolin, always, always, use a metal glove to protect your fingers!

Once sliced, drop the asparagus and radishes into a bowl of iced water with a squeeze of lemon. This is to stop the asparagus from oxidising and help the vegetables to crisp up.

Ice is such a useful tool to have at hand —

1. If you have any leafy greens or herbs that are looking a bit sad and tired, give them an ice bath! Fill a large bowl with iced water and leave greens to sit and freshen up for 15–20 minutes. They will rehydrate and crisp up. Be sure to spin them dry before using them.

2. You can also use ice baths to make vegetables curl up prettily — we will often do this with shaved fennel, radishes, and shredded spring onions.

This salad is particularly good with this week’s pasta. It also eats well with chicken and salmon. You could boil some new season potatoes and eggs and have it as a supper plate (see below for inspiration) if you like.

Spring Supper Plates!

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Roasted Cauliflower Cacio e Pepe

This fabulous pasta is a vegetable-forward take on one of our favourite Italian pasta dishes. You get the most wonderfully nutty, caramelised flavour from the roasted cauliflower, creating that yummy and satisfying mouthfeel you expect from cacio e pepe, without being quite as decadent.

We love sneaking vegetables into dishes as much as possible, especially when disguised as one of our best-loved pasta sauces. If you have vegetable-adverse kids, this is a great one to try! Just tell them it’s mac and cheese and they won’t know the difference :)