The Kitchen of Belis

Asparagus season is almost here! It starts around mid-April and last about only two months - definitely not enough time for me to get enough of this vegetable. It comes to our household all year around.

Recently I was reading that in Germany, every eatery from the tiniest to the most elaborate offered a special asparagus menu that would list as many as 45 variations of this vegetable. Assuming this is true, I started to wonder why all I do to this vegetable is to steam it...

Thinking lemon (somehow) would be a good match to this vegetable, I made lemony-asparagusy rice for the first time.

Here is the recipe that I found from the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook -

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 large shallots, minced
1 1/2 cups (brown) basmati rice
1/4 cups lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 pound thin asparagus
Finely minced zest of 1 lemon

Directions:

Heat the broth.
Heat the olive oil in another pot. Add shallots and saute them for couple minutes. Add rice and stir until all the grains are coated with oil. Add boiling broth, lemon juice, salt and some pepper. Stir to bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer covered for 10 minutes.
Get rid of the tough ends of asparagus. Then cut it into little pieces. Add asparagus along with lemon zest into rice and simmer until it's cooked.
Rest it covered before serving with a piece of paper towel between the lid and the pot.