I think we have a winner, and a definite loser

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Bad news first: do not waste your time and good asparagus on this ridiculous shaving/blanching/drying/microwaving probably-molecular gastronomy nonsense. What I ended up with were beautiful ribbons of asparagus stuck to my plate and blah as could be. No crunch, no essence of asparagus. Dios mio.

HOWEVER, I do feel that we have a winner, and that is: kofta sliders, grilled asparagus and cumin-coriander aioli. Pretty, n’est-ce pas?

Aioli success! Ok, my arm is tired from the whisking, but this aioli is goood. I made a simple le

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Aioli success! Ok, my arm is tired from the whisking, but this aioli is goood. I made a simple lemon-garlic one per Amanda Hesser and then split that into three so I could make samples of other ideas.

In one, I added more lemon, a couple dashes of cayenne and of crushed red pepper. I think this would be lovely with the crispy asparagus I mentioned earlier and which are drying in the oven now. You shave fresh asparagus into thin strips with a veggie peeler, blanch in boiling water for a minute of so, drain and spread onto parchment and place into the oven on low heat (200 or less) until dry, and then micro for 30 secs - 1 min. I haven’t tried this before but am on the oven drying step now.

In a second, I added freshly toasted, coarsely ground cumin seed (1/4 tsp) and coriander seed (1/4 tsp). I did not use all 1/2 tsp. My idea here is to make sliders or meatballs out of Tom’s kofta recipe and serve with the cumin-coriander aioli rather than hummus.

I haven’t decided about the third but am noodling on smoked paprika…