Andalucian Asparagus (p. 293)

This is a recipe from southern Spain, from the region of Andalucia.

My CSA box last week has lovely little asparagus stalks in it, so I wanted to find a tasty way to prepare them. Unfortunately, there are only two asparagus recipes in the cookbook and I've already done one of them.

In a pan, sauté garlic, almonds (I used the ones I prepared earlier this week), and bread cubes in olive oil until they are all browned.

Put this mixture in a food processor along with a little sherry vinegar (or, in my case, red wine vinegar mixed with a little sherry) and salt. Process this briefly, so that it is coarsely chopped.

In the same pan that was used before, sauté the asparagus (I needed to add a little bit more olive oil for this.) Once the asparagus has cooked for a little over five minutes, place it in an oven-proof pan. Boil a cup of water and pour it over the asparagus and then add the bread crumb mixture to the top. Bake the dish for about 15 minutes.

We both really enjoyed this, but felt that less water should have been poured onto the asparagus -- it made the topping a little soggier than I would have liked. If I made this again, I would only use a half cup of boiling water. Still, the bread crumb mixture was very flavorful and the asparagus was perfect.

Since I'm in a CSA now, its hard for me to determine the prices of my veggies. These won't be exact, but from now on I'm just going to divide the overall price per week of the box ($22.00) by however many different types of veggies I receive that week. So, this week, I had six types of veggies in the box, or $3.67 per veggie type.

asparagus -- $3.67

Total Cost of Andalucian Asparagus: $3.67