Green asparagus recipes

The green asparagus of Altedo is a PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) product that combines well with many ingredients to create a variety of recipes.

The Promoting Committee of the Altedo's Green Asparagus Festival organizes every May, during the festival, the recipe contest "Golden Asparagus". Here are some of the winners:

First courses

Maltagliati pasta with lobster and Altedo's asparagus

Lobster sauce

Ingredients: 2 lobster shells cut into pieces, 2 celery stalks, 1 carrot, 1 leek, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, a twig of tarragon, 1 chili pepper, 1/2 glass of cognac, 1/2 glass of Pernod, 1/2 glass of dry white wine, ripe tomatoes, fish base

Preparation: sauté the vegetables in olive oil. Add the lobster shells, the Pernod, the cognac and flambe the mix. Pour the white wine and reduce. Add the tomatoes and the fish base and boil for 20 minutes. Whip the mixture and seep it through a strainer. Add salt and pepper and reduce until the desired thickness is reached.

Maltagliati pasta

Ingredients: 250gr. of fresh Maltagliati pasta, 30 mid-size green asparagus, 200gr. of lobster sauce (see recipe above), extra-virgin olive oil, chives.

Preparation: Boil the asparagus in salted water, drain and put in a bin filled with ice. Boil the lobsters in the court-bouillion for approx. 4 minutes. Extract the lobster meat from the tails and the clams. Cut the heads of the asparagus and pan-fry them in olive oil and chives. Warm up the lobster sauce. Boil the Maltagliati pasta, drain and pan-fry it together with the asparagus sauce.

Serving suggestion: put the lobster sauce in the dish, then put the maltagliati, and finish with the asparagus heads and pieces of lobster on top. Serve hot.

Asparagus and fish 

Pancakes of asparagina and sardine

Ingredients: 1 kg "asparagina" (small asparagus of Altedo), 1 medium onion, 4 eggs, 50gr. parmesan cheese, 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs, 500gr. fresh sardines, frying oil, salt, pepper.

Preparation: mince the onion and pan fry it. Slice thinly the "asparagina" and add it to the onion. Pan fry it and let it cool down. Clean the sardines removing head and fishbones. Beat the eggs with the parmesan and the breadcrumbles. Add the mix to the asparagus (cold). Take a sardine, cover it with a tablespoon of the mixture, put another sardine on top and deep fry the "sandwich" on both sides. Use the remaining mixture to prepare an omelette.

Serving suggestion: Put the omelette in a dish, place the sardines garnished with parsley and tomato on top. 

Desserts

Sweet cake with asparagus

Ingredients: 300gr. flour, 200gr. asparagus, 150gr. vanilla-flavoured sugar, 70gr. granulated sugar, 60gr. butter, 2 eggs, grated lemon peel, milk, baking powder (for 500gr. mixture)

Preparation: boil the asparagus and whip the soft parts until they become an half refined cream. Pour the flour in a bowl, add the granulated sugar, the vanilla-flavoured sugar, the baking powder, the eggs, the butter (previously melted) and the grated peel of an half lemon. Stir all of the ingredients and add a little milk to make the mixture slightly fluid. Keep on stirring while adding the whipped asparagus. Pour the mixture into a "donut-shaped" oven pan and bake for 40minutes at 180°C.

Serving suggestion: when the cake is cooked let it cool down and turn the pan upside down to take it out. Serve with vanilla-flavoured sugar on top and - in case - with whipped cream to fill the inner hole.