Asparagus salad

With London broil, oh yeah, I'm going to eat the whole thing. Eventually.

Obviously they're boiled or steamed first. This ice bath is to arrest the cooking and to shock the chlorophyll to dark green and hold that delicious color. If you don't it turns a less attractive green. This is ARTS! 

1/2 teaspoon sugar.

The vinaigrette is taste-tested and found wanting. Too much lemon. 1/3 dumped out, replaced with oil, adjusted with body-imparting anchovy and heat-imparting chile flakes and with purple onion.

This is it right here. This should be the picture on top but it's shown with a tomato instead. 

That happened at the store where I got this idea. The asparagus looked okay on its own and next to the tomato salad looked okay on its own. I told the guy they'd look a lot better together. He laughed and said, "Yeah." 

I realized later I could have bought both and mixed them myself.

Extra potatoes were baked a few days ago for London broil. All the potatoes are small. Three are refrigerated and they turn into something else. They' dry and not so good by themselves. One potato is opened up. It's cracked throughout. Broken to pieces and reheated in the microwave for one minute so the crystallized starches are dissolved, moisture spread throughout by a moment of steam heating through the potato pieces making them easier to accept the marinade in the bowl. The potato is tossed all around. Now the asparagus salad has potato and no tomato, although that too can still be added again. This serving has chunks of cheese. It's versatile.

Lamb patty, asparagus salad

This is the second of two lamb patties frozen together in FoodSaver freezer bags. The first patty was used for bean soup yesterday. Here it is fried in olive oil for just a few minutes to lightly brown, along with a slice of onion.

Meanwhile, a small handful of asparagus tops is fried in a covered sauce pot. A pat of butter is dropped into the pot whereupon it sizzles immediately. Butter is 20% water. The spears are dropped into the pot and arranged in a single layer. The water within the butter steams the asparagus cooking it through, the hot pot sears the spears along one length and only one length. The pot is not moved or shaken, the spears are not disturbed for the cooking process. It takes a bit of intuition to determine when the spears are done. It's alright if they're burned a little. The thing is, if the spears were seared along multiple lengths then they'd overcook by far. This technique imparts a sear and steams the spears perfectly. The best of both worlds, wot? 

Globe basil, one of three basil types from an Aerogarden kit. It grows in a tight bulb of multiple sprigs, each a bulb in itself. It's cute as can be and I wonder why this variety isn't more famous. One of the other types is lemon basil. It grows thinly and bolts early. It has a strong delicious taste of lemon, but frankly, the plant is a bit of a pain in the bum. The third type in the kit is typical standard Genovese basil.