21. Broiled Asparagus with Balsamic Glaze and Parmesan Shards

Date Cooked: September 22nd, 2008
Page: 134
Rating: B+

This dish was the side dish for the broiled chicken thighs from the last post and since the oven was all hot for the chicken I felt it only made sense to get a little more use out of it. This dish was pretty simple to prepare so of course in true Mediocre Cook fashion I screwed it up.

The hardest part of this dish, I shouldn’t even say hardest, maybe most time consuming, was making the balsamic glaze. The balsamic vinegar was reduced on the stovetop until it had thickened and was probably a third of its original volume. You could smell the acidity of the vinegar throughout the kitchen and it smelled really good. Once it was reduced enough I set it aside. I had reduced the recipe since it was only going to be my wife and I. I think in the future I will make a larger batch of the glaze since it tasted awesome! Even my 5 year old thought it was good, and he is not a very adventuresome eater.

The asparagus was trimmed and tossed with oil and some salt and pepper to taste before being broiled in the oven. Once done it was plated and drizzled with the balsamic glaze and some extra virgin olive oil. This is where I screwed up. Notice the name of the recipe ‘…and Parmesan Shards’. It’s not like I didn’t have a nice brick of parmesan in the fridge. In fact I chose this recipe because I had the parmesan. But in my truly chaotic cooking fashion I was so excited to eat I forgot a key ingredient. Did the dish suffer? Hardly, but it would have been nice to have remembered a key ingredient. In my defense though I did have more on the go than normal since I am trying hard to bring dishes together at the same time to form a meal.

Rating: B+ and I’m not counting the fact I forgot the parmesan. The glaze was good and went very well with the asparagus but it didn’t really cling to the spears. I found I had to wipe it off the plate to coat the asparagus for each bite.