Hi friends! A quick, craveable, down and dirty side dish for you today: garlicky lemon asparagus. Or zucchini. Or carrots. Or pretty much any vegetable.
With the days s l o w l y starting to warm up, I’ve been craving fresh, zingy, vegetables at all hours – this is our current favorite.
Just look at that char.
So, this is really a recipe for the grill, but if you don’t have a grill/don’t feel like grilling, these could easily be popped on the stove in a frying pan on high heat as well.
Start out with as much asparagus (or your chose veg) as you’d like – we have ~3 lb here. Clean and snip off the woody ends of the asparagus.
Place into a large bowl, and set aside. Peel half a head of garlic (or 3 cloves per lb) and press into your bowl of asparagus. We love garlic here so I have no shame in admitting we used a highly scientific ass–ton of it.
Pour a few glugs of extra virgin olive oil, squeeze of fresh lemon juice (I used a whole lemon for 3 lb asparagus), ~tsp of salt per lb, and a lot of fresh ground pepper.
Time to get your hands dirty! If you have any cuts you didn’t know about now’s the time for you to find out.
Make sure it’s all nice and semi-evenly coated.
N uses this grill plate thing for his Big Green Egg so that the asparagus doesn’t fall through; last weekend he grilled zucchini that I had sliced lengthwise straight on the grill grates and it worked wonderfully. If you’re doing this inside on the stove, heat a large frying pan to med-high heat and work in small batches of asparagus.
Grill until you’ve got a nice char and the asparagus is to whatever tenderness you like.
Tonight we’re having steaks to go alongside, but last weekend we had grilled chicken thighs and roasted potatoes. I can see this tasting great with pasta or fish as well!
It started seriously raining, so we moved the production line inside. I sautéed the rest of the asparagus on a frying pan, adding a couple tbsp of water to the pan to keep the garlic from burning and to help the veg steam.
Hope you try, and enjoy!
Are you grilling? Give us some ideas for next time in the comments section!
The Bohemian Louisan 