The asparagus season is slowly coming to an end. So, don't postpone too long anymore if you want to eat this delicious white gold. A few weeks ago I made passionate asparagus, a stunning combination with orange juice and passion fruit. But this "asparago tonnato" is also very different and very surprising.
Of course, this is inspired on the world famous Italian dish Vitello Tonnato. This is veal with a tuna fish sauce. I figured this tuna fish sauce should also perfectly combine with asparagus. It tastes delicious and above all, it is ready in no time! Asparago is the singular form for asparagus. In plural it is asparagi tonnato. Of course, most of the time you will eat more than one asparagus. but I chose the singular form for the title as it sounds better 🙂
asparago tonnato
Equipment
- blender
Ingredients
- 1 kg asparagus
- 1 can tuna fish in olive oil (180gram)
- 1 can sardines 100 gram
- 1 chili pepper
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3 tablespoons caper
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 50 ml olive oil
- 150 gram mayonaise
Instructions
- Peel the asparagus and cut the harder bottom parts off. Cook them during 10-15 minutes until tender.
- Meanwhile put all the other ingredients in a blender: tuna fish, sardines, garlic, chili pepper, caper, lemon juice, olive oil, mayonaise.
- Mix everything well until you have a consistent smooth sauce. Check whether you need to add additional seasoning like pepper or salt.
- Arrange the asparagus on plates and pour the tuna fish sauce over them. Garnish with cherry tomatoes and/or caper as you like.
Nutrition
About Vitello Tonnato
Vitello Tonnato is a world famous Italian starter. As always with Italian dishes, it is super easy to make and tastes delicious. Vitello means veal and Tonnato can be translated as tuna fish sauce. So in English you would say veal with a tuna fish sauce. This sauce has the consistency of mayonaise, and the method is in fact quite the same. In the very original recipe you would not use mayo, but the ingredients of it: egg yolk, mustard, olive oil. For my aspergo tonnato I took the shortcut of using mayonaise.
About caper
Another indispensable ingredient for a Tonnato are caper. We all know them from the little jars in the supermarket, with different sizes of caper in it. But what are they? And where do they come from?
Capers are the unopened flower buds of the caper plant, with the seeds. This plant grows in the Mediterranean area, but it is thought to originate more from the tropics. I like them a lot, because their specific taste gives an extra dimension to any of your dishes.
I recently made a nice overview of surprising.asparagus recipes in my article on passionate asparagus. So if you are interested in more inspiration with asparagus, you may check that article. Lets focus here on some surprising.recipes with tuna fish and caper:
- Sicilian tuna pasta with baked caper
- Greek tuna fish starter
- Quail eggs tonnato
- Tuna mascarpone dip
- Linguine alla puttanesca
If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.
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