This elegant grilled asparagus salad with jammy eggs, blistered onions, chewy spelt, and an attention-grabbing creamy dressing is the perfect way to celebrate the spring sunshine. Spelt berries are sold with their hulls intact, which means they’ll take a bit longer to cook but will reward your patience with al dente chewy nuttiness. They can be swapped out for rye berries, wheat berries, or gluten-free sorghum.
Per serving:
In medium-sized saucepan, place spelt, 2 1/2 cups (625 mL) water, and generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to maintain a strong simmer, and cook, covered, until spelt is tender, about 40 minutes. Drain well.
Bring medium saucepan of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Using slotted spoon, carefully lower eggs into water one at a time. Cook for 6 1/2 minutes, adjusting heat to maintain a gentle boil. Transfer eggs to bowl of ice water and chill for 2 minutes. Gently
crack eggs all over and peel, starting from the wider end with the air pocket. Gently slice eggs in half; yolks will be runny.
Build a medium-hot fire in charcoal grill, or heat gas grill to medium-high and grease grill grates.
Toss asparagus with 1 tsp (5 mL) oil. Place on grill grate and heat until tender and charred in a few spots, turning once, 3 to 4 minutes. If stalks are large, they might take longer to cook. Generally, asparagus is ready when you can easily pierce the middle with a fork.
Brush green onions with remaining 1 tsp (5 mL) oil. Place on grill grate and cook, turning once, until grill marks appear and they are fork-tender all the way through, about 8 minutes. Remove from grill.
In bowl, whisk together tahini, miso, lemon juice, honey, and garlic. Whisk in warm water, 1 Tbsp (15 mL) at a time, until a thin consistency is reached.
To assemble salad, divide asparagus and green onions among 4 serving plates. Top with spelt, eggs, almonds, and capers. Drizzle Tahini Miso Dressing overtop.
Tip: Soaking whole grains, such as spelt, for several hours in cold water can slash their cooking time by about 25 percent.
Yogurt completely transforms the texture of these chicken thighs, making them tender and flavourful with bright notes of lemon and cilantro. Ideal for a day trip, these can be marinated in the morning and cooked in the evening, but they also work well when cooked in advance and packed for a picnic to be eaten cold. Marinade mentions Marinate chicken thighs for anywhere between 4 and 24 hours. Discard excess marinade that has been in contact with raw chicken. It should not be consumed uncooked.
Citrusy and slightly sour sumac and a touch of maple syrup enliven pickled onions in a perfect complement to this salad. Kale and Napa cabbage stand up for hours to the sweet and puckery dressing, and hearty farro will keep you going while on the road. This salad is sure to be a favourite for picnics, backyard potlucks, or road trip lunch stops. Dressing for dinner This salad stands up well, even while dressed, for up to 4 hours. (Truth be told, I’ve often happily eaten it the next day.) In fact, time helps kale to soften up and become even more delicious. If you’re travelling for a longer period, make the pickled onion dressing as described above: let it stand for about 20 minutes, and then add all the oil and pack it into a separate container so you can finish the salad when you arrive at your destination. The pickled onions are also great with steaks or chicken.
These wraps are perfect for an overnight journey when you want to have something quick and satisfying the next day. Sweet smoked paprika adds just a hint of smoky flavour to sweet potatoes, which join with spinach and red pepper to dress up eggs in a pleasing way. Make these wraps anytime and stick them in the freezer for your next excursion. Pack them frozen and they’ll have time to thaw on the journey, or put them in the fridge the night before you travel so you have something convenient and tasty to eat before you set off. Leave the ketchup bottle behind, and serve them with your own smoky red pepper sauce. Freeze with ease While foil is convenient for freezing and reheating these wraps, to cut down on waste, freeze wraps in a single freezer-proof container. Insert a small piece of parchment between each wrap so they don’t stick together. This will allow you to remove individual wraps easily when you need them.
While sablefish’s texture and fat content stand up admirably to the heat of the grill, this firm fish is also delicious poached. For this recipe, sablefish’s luxurious taste is combined with a light fragrant broth of lemongrass and ginger punctuated with the heat of Thai chili. Sustainability status Sablefish, also known as butterfish or black cod, is a rich and satisfying fish, plentiful in omega-3s and sourced sustainably from the Pacific Northwest. Skin and bones Sablefish has large pin bones. Ideally, your fishmonger will remove them, but if not, before you begin, locate them along the fish’s centreline and, using a pair of needle nose pliers, grasp them firmly to remove. You can leave the skin on for this recipe, which may help the fish hold together a little better while cooking, but it can be tricky to peel the skin away from the cooked fish and discard before plating. I opted to remove the skin first and simply keep a close eye on the cooking time, being careful to remove the fish from the poaching liquid before it flakes apart.