Asparagus with Chèvre Vinaigrette

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:   As I said when I shared our recipe for Butter Chicken two weeks ago, Mr. Right and I love recreating at home dishes we’ve particularly enjoyed out and about. Our trip to Seattle for Left Coast Crime followed by a few days of vacation gave me several recipes to try, as did my trip two weeks later to Malice Domestic, another mystery fan convention, in Bethesda, MD. 

I’d already made the dinner reservation at Le Pichet near the Market in Seattle, a French bistro I’d wanted to try for years, when I spotted the former owner’s recipe for asparagus with pine nuts, scallions and chèvre vinaigrette in the Seattle Times. (Le Pichet translates to the pitcher, as in a small pitcher of wine for the table.) Naturally, we had to have it, and my, was it tasty. 

We cooked just the amount of asparagus we wanted to eat that evening, with the full amount of vinaigrette. It’s a coldish salad, so you could make more, but I think the cooked asparagus would suffer a bit and wrinkle in the fridge, and it's easy to cook quickly and allow to chill while you make the rest. The vinaigrette holds nicely, and can be used with any vegetable or salad.

The sharp-eyed reader will spot a lemon on the ingredients list but not in the photos. Mea culpa – I forgot to get one. I had juice, though, so all was well. But lemon zest does add a brightness that would go particularly well here. I also used blanched, slivered almonds in place of the pricey, hard-to-find pine nuts; sliced almonds would work well, too. Remember that they will continue to cook and brown as they cool, so don’t overcook them. Fresh thyme leaves would be great, if you have them. The original recipe calls for soy oil; that seems to be much like soybean oil. I used canola, but another neutral vegetable oil would probably work well, too. I did not use the full cup; judge the consistency of the dressing as you mix, which will vary depending on the density of your goat cheese.

We’ve now served this with grilled flank steak and with grilled salmon, delicious both times. Add a little French bread and a crisp white wine, and pretend you’re in France. Or Seattle. Or my house. 

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe so you can print it easily. Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Asparagus with Chèvre Vinaigrette 

– adapted from a recipe by Jim Drohman, former owner of Le Pichet, via Bethany Jean Clement of the Seattle Times. 

2 pounds asparagus

4-5 scallions

¼ cup pine nuts or sliced or blanched, slivered almonds

½ cup rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)

3-4 tablespoons chèvre (fresh goat cheese)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 

½ teaspoon thyme leaves

1 small shallot, peeled and sliced 

1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced 

neutral vegetable oil, such as soy or canola, about 1 cup

Salt and fresh-ground black pepper (to taste)

zest of 1 lemon

Rinse the asparagus in cold water. Trim off the tough end of each stalk. Blanch in salted boiling water until it is cooked but still has a bit of crunch, 2-3 minutes. Immediately rinse well in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain, dry. and refrigerate.

 

Rinse the scallions, trimming off the roots and any ragged ends of the greens. Slice thinly, including some of the greens.

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium heat 5-10 minutes, or in the oven at 300 degrees, 8-10 minutes. (Watch carefully, as they can burn quickly. They will continue to cook and brown as they cool.) 

Combine all the vinegar, chevre, lemon juice, mustard, thyme, shallot, and garlic in a blender or immersion blender. Puree. Slowly add the oil and continue to blend until the vinaigrette emulsifies. Taste. It should have a bright acid profile. Correct the seasoning with salt and fresh ground pepper as needed.

Arrange the asparagus on four salad plates or on a serving platter. Drizzle with vinaigrette to taste. Sprinkle with nuts and scallions, and top with the lemon zest.

Serves 4 as a first course. 

Bon appetit! 

Is there a restaurant in your town, or a place you visit regularly, that you're eager to try? Do tell!

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

TO ERR IS CUMIN:  A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, coming July 16, 2024 in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: 

One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

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). Her latest book is Between a Wok and a Dead Place, the 7th Spice Shop mystery.  Watch for To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery, in July 2024 and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. 

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.

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