I’ve headed back to Mary Younkin’s cookbooks, this one focused on breakfast and lunch, and found a recipe with ingredients that I love. Not so much with MM (again). He’s not a mushroom person, and asparagus is also not his favorite. In fact, when I decided to make this recipe and told him that those two ingredients were part of the dish, he opted out. Once I started, though, he changed his mind a bit…
Lemon Pasta with Asparagus and Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 8 oz dried spaghetti or angel hair pasta
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 8 oz baby bella mushrooms thinly sliced
- 8 oz fresh asparagus trimmed and cut to bite-size
- ½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 3 tbsp butter divided
- Kosher salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- Parmesan cheese to taste
Instructions
- Prepare the pasta according to the instructions, saving ½ cup of the pasta water before draining. Do not rinse the pasta after draining.
- Warm the oil in a large skillet over medium heat until shimmering, then add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.
- Add mushrooms, asparagus, pepper flakes, and 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir to coat the vegetables, then stir and cook for 3-4 minutes, until the mushrooms have softened and asparagus is bright green and slightly tender.
- Add the cooked pasta and lemon juice to the skillet and season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss to combine and coat the pasta. Add a splash of the reserved pasta water, adding a touch more if the pasta is dry. Continue to toss the pasta until the sauce has emulsified, then stir in the remaining butter. Serve topped with cheese.
Again, this particular recipe was pretty simple – simple preparation, simple ingredients. The original suggests angel hair pasta, which I didn’t have, and had chili pepper flakes, which I didn’t have either. Therefore you get what’s in the recipe above.
The picture in the cookbook has longer spears of asparagus, so I went rogue and cut them smaller. This made sense to me not just because my mouth isn’t that big (despite what my friends and family say), but also because my asparagus was quite large.
Once the asparagus and mushrooms have been washed and prepped, it was easy to put everything together. I started the oil when the pasta had only about 2 minutes left, which worked out pretty well so that the pasta wasn’t ice cold when it was time to add it to the skillet.
Perhaps next time I’ll be able to time it even better, and be able to take the pasta straight from the strainer to the skillet. Still, this time around was really good. Possibly a touch too spicy for me (you all know how much I’m not a fan of heat), but MM actually liked the whole thing.
Another addition to our regular rotation, I think!