Asparagus time!

Asparagus aka Spargel in German is probably every German person's favorite dish and definitely marks spring time here. More than the weather sometimes... In Japan we only eat the green ones and they are a lot thinner. I miss those but I have come to also love the thick and white ones you can get here :)

When I first saw the white ones I wondered why are they actually white? Well, I looked at up and the white ones are white because they were deprived of light ("etiolated"). The asparagus couldn't produce the chlorophyll, which make the plants green.



Today's asparagus dish (not white but green!):
Green asparagus with fried ham and carrot risotto (without alcohol)

Asparagus was fried (peels on, only cut off the really hard bit at the end, fry until soft)
Fry the ham according to the way you like it (crispy?)

Carrot risotto
2 cups of rice
2 small carrots
1 small onion
About 4 cups of broth (made of fresh parsley)
Some butter and oil
Some hard cheese (parmesan)

Prepare the broth in a small pot: hot water (doesn't have to be boiling) with fresh parsley (you could just add instant broth but I don't really like the taste of it)

On a deep enough pan or a pot fry diced onions and carrots and risotto rice (sushi rice or milchreis could also be a substitute) until translucent.with a bit of oil. You can add white wine here if you want but don't have to. In a lower temperature, start adding the broth one ladle at a time to the rice mixture and continue steering. Do this until the rice looks cooked (c.a. 30 minutes). The amount of broth should be enough but adjust according to taste.
Add S&P and a bit of butter (1 spoon) for a bit of taste.
Sprinkle some cheese at the very end!

Spaghetti al pesto con Mango

My quasi Mother-in-law introduced me to use Mango in pasta --so the fruit is not a desert but part of the main dish... I altered her recipe a bit since I couldn't get a hold of some of the ingredients in the local supermarket.

Mango pasta with Pesto and shrimps.

- (Whole wheat) pasta cooked al dente
- Ripe mango, diced
- Pesto (original recipe calls for Coriander pesto, but I just made normal ones with Basil)
- Shrimps -> fried with olive oil and some spring onions, diced

The original recipe uses raw spring onions but I don't like raw spring onions (or onions) so I fried them together with the shrimps.

Very summery dish and a nice twist to the usual "Spaghetti al pesto"

Leftover Bolognese sauce

One of the few dishes I decided not to cook at home is Bolognese sauce. In our relationship my bf is the one who cooks this specific sauce. It's quite rare he stands in the kitchen, unfortunately, so when he wants to eat Spaghetti Bolognese he has to cook it :)

Anyways.. the sauce is yummy but he tends to cook a huuuuuuge portion and we would end up eating Bolognese for about a good week (I get bored...and that would be too much meat...so in the end I do freeze it)

On the third day of Bolognese, I came up with a new dish after googling "Left over Bolognese"
It's  like a Bruschetta but with Bolognese sauce and Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. It works better when the bread is toasted before the sauce it put on top