I am in love with this recipe for a few days already. I saw it on the social media streams of the Belgian foodblog cookameal, original title tropical asparagus (in Dutch). It inspired me so much that I have been making my versions of it for three consecutive days now. I made passionate asparagus out of it, that’s how I feel about this recipe â¤ï¸.
passionate asparagus
Equipment
- aluminium foil or baking paper
Ingredients
- 500 gram asparagus white
- 1 orange
- 1 passion fruit
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 100 gram scampi
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- pepper
- salt
- butter
- chives
Instructions
- Peel the asparagus and cut off the wooden part at the bottom. Place them in a baking tray on aluminium foil (on the shiny side).
- Press the orange and halve the passion fruit. Mix the juices and bring them up to taste with brown sugar, some pepper and salt.
- Halve the cherry tomatoes.
- Pour the juice over the asparagus. Place some cubes of butter and the halved tomatoes on top.
- Fold the aluminium foil "en papillotte". It should be hermetically closed. Place the baking tray in the oven which is preheated at 200°C.
- Steam the passionate asparagus for 40 minutes in the oven.
- Now you can rest for 35 minutes. Five minutes before they are ready you can start preparing the scampi.
- Heat some butter in a small pan. You can also add some pili pili if you like a spicy bite. Some additional halved cherry tomatoes can also go along if you want.
- Bake the scampi for a few minutes. Not too long, otherwise they are overdone.
- Take the asparagus out of the oven and open the foil. this will smell delicious!!!
- Check whether the asparagus are ready and transfer them to the plates. Finish with scampi and chives and enjoy with a good glass of white wine.
Of course, the cooking time is not fixed and may vary a bit according to asparagus, the oven you are using and of also how you like them most. With this method, “en papillotte”, it is of course a bit more difficult to check during the process. The first time, my asparagus were a bit smaller. But after 25 minutes on 180°C they were just al dente. The second time I had bigger ones, and I chose 40 minutes at 200°C. They were perfect!
Aluminium foil or baking paper?
Up to now, I always used aluminium foil for this kind of recipes. It is very easy to fold it hermetically. But during the preparations of this post I saw a discussion on a German blog about potential health issues. This discussion was ignited by a government warning about aluminium parts in deodorants. I am not sure whether this is a hoax or not. If you are doing this only once, I don’t think you should worry too much.
Alternatively you can use baking paper. In this case the folding is a bit more difficult. I would advise to also use some rope to make sure it doesn’t open up in the oven. You can check some folding techniques on the Belgian site libellelekker.be (in Dutch).
No spring without asparagus. On surprising recipes it is a tradition to publish some surprising recipes with asparagus. Please check also the following ones, which are favourites of mine:
- Flemish asparagus
- Breaded asparagus
- Asparagus chicken-curry spring cocktail
- Fish stew with green and white asparagus
- Salmon with lemon butter sauce and green asparagus
If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.
Sounds great!