A Twist on a German Classic!

Hello Foodies!

This week I have a treat for you. The asparagus and strawberry season is well underway. If you live in the countryside you can see many farmers allowing you to pick your own strawberries and asparagus.

With the warm weather, eating lighter is in but you still want to eat something warm and filling, but without being heavy.

Usually, in May and June, we like to visit local Asparagus Festivals (Spargelfest) here in Germany. This is a social event where many people get together outdoors or in large tents to listen to live music and eat asparagus, strawberries and of course sausages.

There are usually plenty of activities organised to keep the kids busy and they have a lot of fun.

Today's dish is inspired by this theme - Roasted Asparagus with boiled potatoes. The asparagus is roasted in a garlic olive oil dressing which gives it the most wonderful flavour you can imagine. Instead of the traditional hollandaise sauce, I served it with some mustard.

Usually, in the Asparagus Festival, you would have boiled asparagus and potatoes with a sweet creamy hollandaise sauce. I often like to steam asparagus at home but I skip that today because then it would miss the gorgeous garlic flavouring that just melts in your mouth.

The first step is to peel the potatoes and put them in some boiling water with salt for flavour. Afterwards, gather the asparagus and snap the ends with your hands where it is easy to snap. You can then make a nice clean cut with the knife. This gets rid of the hard bits that we don't want.

The next step is to prepare a small glass of olive oil for our dressing. I added a sprinkling of Vegeta and crushed up 3 small cloves of garlic. Afterwards I put the asparagus in an oven dish a mixed them in the olive dressing getting my hands nice and dirty. I then washed my hands before covering the dish with foil and putting it in the oven at 200 degrees.

Checking the potatoes are nice and soft by putting a thin sharp knife in to test after about 30 minutes, they should be nice and soft. You can add some butter or margarine here for some extra flavour to the potatoes.

I also added some frozen Dill here which quickly defrosted to give some added decoration and flavour to the potatoes. You can also use fresh Dill if you have it.

I've also taken the asparagus out of the oven and removed the foil. They should look ready to eat!

I then plated up remembering to scoop up the sauce and garlic and put them on top of the asparagus. I like to eat the potatoes with some mustard which gives it a nice kick too.

The full ingredients list: (to feed just 1)
500g Asparagus
500g Potatoes
5 tablespoons olive oil
3 pieces of garlic
Sprinkling of Vegeta
Sprinkling of dill
Pinch of salt

I hope you are enjoying the asparagus season too. It is one of my favourite times of the year. 😀

Let me know if you like asparagus in the comments or what dishes you are eating at this time of the year.

Thanks for reading.

Resources:
All photos are my own.