Growing up, I hated asparagus. I thought it tasted weird, had an odd texture and was downright lousy. These days my opinion has completely changed and I think it's one of the tastiest veggies out there. Naturally it took a piece of cured meat to change all of that. That's right, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus was how I took the plunge from asparagus hater, to asparagus lover. And while I've learned to love asparagus [1] in most any form, there's nothing quite as tasty as when it's wrapped in pork.
The traditional recipe for prosciutto-wrapped asparagus calls for you to blanch [2] them first. However our pals at Slashfood claim you can skip the blanching step and roast them directly [3]. Not wanting to dirty another pan, I decided to take their advice. It came out perfectly, and made for a wonderfully quick, delicious appetizer. If you want to see how to do it — with or without blanching — just .
Roasting without Blanching Method
To create the asparagus seen here, I cut the woody ends of the asparagus off. Next I cut pieces of prosciutto with kitchen shears (to create smaller pieces easily), and then wrapped them around the stems. I roasted them directly on a pan in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes. I used skinny asparagus stalks, for larger stalks, you'll want to up the cooking time.
From Whole Foods [5]
Ingredients
20 stalks of asparagus
4 thin slices of prosciutto, fat removed
4 teaspoons unsalted butter
freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Reggiano Parmesan
1 lemon, quartered
Directions
- Cut off tough ends of asparagus. Cover asparagus with water in a skillet; bring to a boil and cook until tender but still firm, 3–4 minutes. Drain well.
- Divide asparagus into 4 bundles of 3 stalks each. Wrap prosciutto slice around center of bundle. Place the bundles into oven-proof dish; dot with butter; season with pepper, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Place in the oven to brown the cheese, 4–5 minutes.
- Serve with lemon wedge.
Print recipe with images [5] | without images [5]
- Photo 1 [7]
- Photo 2 [8]
- Photo 3 [9]
- Photo 4 [10]
- Photo 5 [11]