Celebrate the spring season with the emergence of the delicate and almost luminous white asparagus. As far as white asparagus recipes go, this salad with chilli feta cheese is nothing like you’ve tasted before!
Take out 3 blocks of Yarra Valley Cheese (YVC) Persian Fetta with Chilli and leave out at room temperature while you prepare the rest of the salad.
Lay white asparagus flat on a chopping board. From the bottom of the tip, peel all the way down the stalk. Cut off the end around 1 cm. Then cut diagonally into 4-5 pieces. Keep the tips to one side.
Bring a medium saucepan of water to the boil. Except for the tips, add the white asparagus for 10 minutes. With 4 minutes to go, add the tips into the boiling water. Remove, run under cold water and set aside to dry on paper towels.
Cut the yellow squash into quarters.
Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil. Add yellow squash and peas and boil for 3 minutes. Remove, run under cold water and set aside to dry on paper towels.
Pick out a few nice flat leaf parsley leaves for garnish and set aside. Then chop the rest to yield ⅓ cup.
In a small fry pan, dry toast pine nuts for 1-2 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside to cool down.
Assembly
Remove about 6 of the best-looking white asparagus tips and set aside for garnish.
In a medium sized mixing bowl, add the remaining white asparagus, chopped parsley, yellow squash, peas, 1 tbsp of pine nuts, 2 tbsp of the YVC Persian Fetta with Chilli oil marinate and some salt and pepper to taste. Gently toss until well combined.
On a plate, smear the 3 blocks of the room temperature YVC Persian Fetta with Chilli on one side of the plate. Cover only a small area.
Add the tossed salad to the other side of plate without covering the fetta.
Crumble 2 additional blocks (cold from the fridge) on top of the salad.
Tuck the nice-looking white asparagus tips around the salad.
Sprinkle the rest of the pine nuts on top and garnish with the nice-looking parsley leaves.
Drizzle another 2 tsp of YVC Persian Fetta with Chilli oil marinate on top.
Serve the rest of the YVC Persian Fetta with Chilli in a bowl on the side for those who would like more.
Serve.
Notes
3 blocks of the YVC Persian Fetta with Chilli is taken out at the start of the process so that it will soften and is easier to smear on the plate. The additional 2 blocks used to crumble on top of the salad towards the end is preferred cold so that it crumbles better and fluffier as otherwise it will become too soft when it’s too warm.
If white asparagus is not in season, just use the green asparagus. Don’t use the white asparagus from the can or jar.
The tips of the white asparagus is cooked for a shorter period of time as it doesn’t require as much cooking time as the rest of the stalk. If cooked or too long it would become too soft.
You can substitute yellow squash with a small zucchini or courgette.
You can use almonds, pistachios or pecans instead of pine nuts. Just make sure they are lightly toasted too to release those lovely aromas.