Asparagus Braised with Butter and Herbs -- #recipe by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: It may be a bit late to catch asparagus at its peak in your neck of the woods, but I couldn’t resist sharing what’s quickly become our new favorite way to eat our favorite vegetable. We’ve long cooked asparagus – known in our house as sparrow grass or aspargirls – and served it with melted butter seasoned with lemon pepper and a dash of lemon juice. This is only the teensiest bit more work, and worth every bit – so, so good! 

We used chives and parsley because that’s what was fresh in our garden. Well, the oregano was fresh, too, but by the time I remembered that, it was raining and I didn’t want to walk out to get it! Just about any fresh herbs you love will go beautifully – I’d like to try it with tarragon. 

Asparagus Braised with Butter and Herbs (adapted from a recipe by Bethany Clements of the Seattle Times)

1-1/2 pounds asparagus

6 tablespoons butter

kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

½ to 1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon lemon zest

1 tablespoon chives, scallion greens, ramps, or shallot, finely chopped

2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs, finely chopped

1 tablespoon or more pine nuts or sliced almonds, toasted (for optional garnish)

Rinse the asparagus spears and snap off the woody ends. 

Place butter in a large skillet and turn heat to medium. When butter is melted, add the asparagus and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add ½ cup water and simmer. Check at 3 minutes. You want the spears to be a bright green, firm but beginning to soften. Move them around with a pair of tongs and cook another minute; fat spears might need two more minutes. Move to a serving platter, leaving the buttery sauce in the pan.

Increase heat to medium high. Add the chives and cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated, leaving a thin sauce. Turn off the heat. Add the lemon juice and zest, and the fresh herbs. Taste and adjust seasonings – salt, pepper, even lemon juice. Pour sauce over the asparagus and garnish. Serve immediately. 

Serves 4. Except at our house, where where it serves 2. 

PS: I've since tried this sauce on broccolini and it was just as good as on the asparagus. I think it would also dress green beans or julienned cooked carrots or zucchini beautifully!

Bon Appetit!

BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE: A Spice Shop Mystery (July 2023, Seventh St. Books)

From the cover: 

It's the Lunar New Year, and fortunes are about to change. 

 

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit?

 

But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up—and why are the owners so reluctant to talk? 

 

With each new discovery, Pepper find herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls. 

 

Then questions arise about Roxanne and her relationship to Pepper's boyfriend Nate, away fishing in Alaska. Between her worries and her struggle to hire staff at the Spice Shop, Pepper has her hands and her heart full. Still, she can't resist the lure of the Gold Rush and its tangled history of secrets and lies stretching back nearly a century. 

 

But the killer is on her tail, driven by hidden demons and desires. As Pepper begins to expose the long-concealed truth, a bigger question emerges: Can she uncover the secrets of the Gold Rush Hotel without being pushed from the wok into the fire?

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Between a Wok and a Dead Place, the 7th Spice Shop mystery, will appear in July 2023. 

A past president of Sisters in Crime and national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.