Pasta with green asparagus

Asparagus pesto with pine nuts and candied lemon

Especially during asparagus season (mid to late April to late June), the green spears are the ideal accompaniment to pasta dishes. Together with pine nuts and lemons, they offer a fresh dish for warm summer days.

Green asparagus:

• 10 green asparagus

• 1 yellow lemon

• Olive oil

• Salt, pepper from Espelette pimento

Snap off the woody part of the asparagus and set aside to prepare the pesto. Cut off the top of the asparagus and save for later. Thinly slice the body of the asparagus.

Cook the fine slices of asparagus in boiling salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and save for further processing.

Heat a pan with olive oil over high heat. Fry the asparagus and season with salt. As soon as the heads are brown on all sides, pour in the juice of one lemon and roll the asparagus in this juice, season with pepper and reduce by half. Remove the asparagus tips and leave the juice in the pan, this will be used to finish the pasta.

Green Asparagus Pesto:

• Lower part of the green asparagus

• 20 g of pine nuts

• 5 sun-dried tomatoes

• 7 pitted green olives

• 1 g of candied lemon

• 1 clove of garlic

• 10 grams of basil

• 5g Golden Chlorella

• 30 ml dried tomato oil

Cook the green asparagus spears in a saucepan of boiling salted water for 10 minutes. They must be very soft.

Place the asparagus, sundried tomatoes, olives, garlic, basil, golden chlorella, candied lemon and half the olive oil in a blender. Blend for 30 seconds, breaking up the pieces a bit. Then add the pine nuts, mix again quickly and mix in the remaining olive oil.

Season with salt and pepper.

Finishing and Dressing:

• 150 g Alver protein-rich fusilli

• 5 olives, sliced

• 10 g toasted pine nuts

•  Lemon peel

• 10 g arugula

Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil and cook the fusilli for 4 minutes.

Drain and add to the frying pan with the cooking juices from the asparagus tips. Add the green asparagus slices that have just been blanched and thicken with a spoonful of asparagus pesto. Heat on a low flame.

Arrange the asparagus noodles in a deep plate and place the green asparagus tips on top. Garnish with the rocket leaves, chopped olives, pine nuts and lemon zest and finish with a nice dollop of pesto.