Another recipe from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, listed on Page 121. Here is how this is going to go down. I'm going to rate the recipe based on the following criteria: Execution of recipe, ease of ingredients, taste. Execution and ingredients will be weighted equally on a scale from 0-5. Taste will be rated on a scale from 0-10. 0 is the lowest score, 20 is the highest.
Ease of Ingredients: (Availability is ranked based on likelihood that ingredient is already typically stocked in a kitchen. Ranking is Common/Uncommon/Rare/Very Rare)
Here's the ingredient list:
Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Common
Lemon - Common, optional ingredient in recipe
Pepper - Common
Salt - Common
Asparagus - Uncommon
I had the asparagus, I just happened to look through the cookbook to see if they had anything related to asparagus. Everything else I already had on hand. Only slight change is that I had some flavored extra virgin olive oil, some Tuscan Herb infusion that came from Isabella's. Thought something like this would be appropriate to use some of the higher priced goodness. Either way, getting these ingredients together is a piece of cake. 5/5
Asparagus - Uncommon
I had the asparagus, I just happened to look through the cookbook to see if they had anything related to asparagus. Everything else I already had on hand. Only slight change is that I had some flavored extra virgin olive oil, some Tuscan Herb infusion that came from Isabella's. Thought something like this would be appropriate to use some of the higher priced goodness. Either way, getting these ingredients together is a piece of cake. 5/5
Ease of Execution (Techniques/Tools used):
Asparagus Prep
Oven Broiling
Labeled as a "fast dish", can complete in 15 minutes. To prep the asparagus, I used the "snap" method (bend until it breaks) to get them ready. Toss them in a bowl with the oil, lay them out on a cookie sheet and set the oven to broil and put on top rack. Shake the pan a couple times while it cooks. Easy. 5/5
Taste
I usually don't broil asparagus, I tend to pan grill to get my results. I found the broiler to be easier to use (I already had the oven on for some baked potatoes, so consolidating the oven for multiple uses made using the broiler worth my time. The asparagus was flavorful and tasty, easily the best asparagus I've ever made. Only nitpick is that my asparagus seemed just a touch overdone, which I won't attribute to human error because I used the ten minutes as described in the recipe and was running off of a timer. Still, a simple but great recipe, this one is a keeper for me. 8/10
Total Score: 18/20 (****1/2)
Total Score: 18/20 (****1/2)
