Dinner with the Levy’s 1. Asparagus with anchovy and milk sauce

We had an impromptu dinner with Joel and Nushi on Saturday night. We sat outside, drank copious amounts of Champagne, Red wine and dessert wine, laughed a lot and toasted Nushi’s latest thespian success.
We also ate a ton of food!
We started with Lisas favourite: picky things.
Given the time of year one of those things just has to be asparagus. I have referred to this River Café recipe for asparagus with anchovy and milk sauce before but here is the recipe…..slightly amended.
Do not be put off by the slightly weird sound of this, it is absolutely delicious.
Btw depending on your appetite this may make enough sauce for another outing and my experience would suggest that it will keep in the fridge for at least a day.

Ingredients for 4

24 spears of asparagus

sauce

6 anchovy fillets(1/2 a small tin)
grated peel of 1 lemon (I do mine on a microplane but a grater will do)
1 small dried chilli (or ½ teaspoon of chilli flakes)
1 garlic clove (peeled and crushed with a little salt)
125ml milk
4 tbs ex virgin olive oil

method

Put the anchovies, lemon peel, chilli and garlic into a food processor and chop briefly.
Add the milk and pulse to make a smooth sauce.
Pour into a bowl and stir in the olive oil until it emulsifies. It should be a lovely thick runny consistency.

Boil the asparagus in salted water until al dente (about 5 minutes) don’t overcook there’s nothing worse than squidgy asparagus.

Drain well. Serve on warm plates with he sauce dribbled over liberally.

Comments

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