September 21, 2020

Grilled Asparagus

Is good. You like.

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(Jump to the recipe file here.)

There is a cancer treatment center, the Burzynski Clinic, in Houston, TX where my sister is receiving ground-breaking, completely safe, treatment… that is working… on her incurable macroglobulimenia. As amazing as this all is, and if you ever want to wax on about Dr. Burzynski’s amazing work and the incredibly divine and timely passing of the Right to Try Bill, just message me anytime! At Dr. B’s clinic, the Polish mother of one of his nurses, everyone just calls her Beata’s Mom, runs a soup cafe where you can grab a really healthy, tasty lunch. She changes the menu everyday, based on what she can find that’s fresh and right for soup, and by what her mood is too, I think. If, however, you ask her what the soup of the day is going to be, she will not tell you. She will tell you, “Is good. You like.”

And! She’s right! Is good. And you do like. And you do eat!

That is now and forevermore my go-to take on and explanation to my family for what vegetable we are having for dinner if it is asparagus or Brussels sprouts. Both of which I love, especially the asparagus when prepared like this.

(A couple Brussels sprouts recipes are coming to the blog in the near future, perhaps to my husband’s chagrin, because we will eat them after I photograph them. I do have two Brussels sprouts recipes that come to mind while writing this post that I quite like, and each blog post that I write just reminds me how much more I have to share! I’m finding each post turns into two posts just to cover what’s in the first, so you can make everything in the first post too! Just starting out, I’ve worried that I wouldn’t have enough content to maintain a blog.) But how’s this for content.)

I could just post this picture and be complete:

Back to asparagus!

I cook it in a foil “pan” on the grill, rain or shine, winter or summer. I mean, I have a rain jacket and a headlamp! But if you don’t have a grill, or are not as die-hard to grill as I am, it works absolutely just as well in the oven, same temperature, same cooking time.

So, here it is:

Grilled Asparagus that is good and you like!

You’ll need:

1 lb. (one bunch) asparagus
1/2 lemon, the zest and the juice
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
1/4 tsp pepper, or to taste
1-2 Tbs olive oil

First up, preheat your grill to medium low, about 350˚F and make a foil pan (and use the same temperature if cooking in the oven.) To make your pan, fold up four sides, and tuck in the corners. This will contain the olive oil as well as the asparagus juices.

Then, wash and pat dry your asparagus and trim the extra woody ends from the stalks.

Lay them out on the foil pan, lined up like soldiers.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Then squeeze the lemon half all over. Then zest your lemon rind. Be sure to get all the zest from the back of the zester; it’s not flavoring anything if it just gets washed down the drain! And also don’t worry if the zest doesn’t just magically sprinkle evenly like pixie dust; clumps of zest here and there are what happens, and they’re just fine.

Then drizzle a teensy stream of olive oil all over the top, coating as evenly as you can get it.

Use a cookie sheet to transfer to the grill (and from – the picture below is them coming from the grill) (or oven, but don’t bake them on the cookie sheet, instead, slide the aluminum foil pan only onto the oven rack to give more of a grill-like circulation).

Cook for anywhere from 5-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of your asparagus stalks.

I typically don’t even flip the asparagus halfway through cooking, unless they are particularly thick stalks.

The finished product should still be vibrant green in color, with only slight charring along any thinner parts of the tips and along the backs of the spears that were in contact with the foil.

I serve this often, and alongside things like steamed salmon steaks or salmon rillettes, or really with any meal that has a hearty side dish (like steaks with mushroon vol au vent), because this is not an overly filling side, but it is nutrient dense.

I once brought them as the side dish that was assigned for each 2nd-grader to bring to the school bar-be-que, and they were the first dish gone! Those ones were particularly meaty, really thick-stalked, beautiful asparagus spears that were at my City Market that May. By the time I made it through the line, they were all gone; just my empty plate sitting there. Then as I was walking to find my seat, I passed a lady double-fisting, with one stalk in each hand. Smart gal! She knew.