How to Make Roasted Asparagus

Hi, I'm Scott Swartz from the Art Institute of New York City. And we’re here today working with spring vegetables. And spring vegetables, first thing that pops into my mind is asparagus. Asparagus is one of the few signs of spring that really tells us that spring is here. So we’re going to do a very simple dish with asparagus. This could be an appetizer. This could be a salad. This could be a side dish. You want to just snap it wherever it snaps. Is the sign that tells you that’s where the asparagus is tender, turning from tender to top. I'm going to take my asparagus. I'm going to set it up on a tray. I'm going to take a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. You want to take about a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil. It really depends upon how much asparagus you have. And then we’re going to sprinkle that with a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper. So I'm going to take my asparagus. My asparagus is going to go into the oven. My setting for my oven is going to be 500 degrees. I want to let my oven pre-heat for about 15 minutes or 20 minutes to make sure it’s really, really hot. I want to put it in the oven. Get the door closed as quickly as possible. Set my timer for 5 minutes. If my asparagus are not too big, 5 minutes in a 500-degree oven should cook them perfectly. While they’re cooking, we’ll make the dressing for the asparagus. We’re going to first start with a little bit of lemon zest. We’ll take a peeler and I peel off the outside of my lemon. And then we can take this and we're just going to chop this up as fine as we can chop it up. Take out container. You got Chinese food, you wash the container out, you put it in the fridge or put the container in the cabinet. And you got a vessel for making salad dressing. Put my lemon zest in. we’re going to take a little bit of shallot. We want to cut it just like an onion. Cut it nice and small. And this is going to again add another layer of flavor to our salad dressing. And we want to go about a full teaspoon with that. So that’s twice as much shallot as we have lemon zest. So that we’re going to add a little bit of lemon juice. We have a small amount of asparagus so we’re going to start about a tablespoon of lemon juice. We’re going to add about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. And we’re going to add a little bit of canola oil. We’re going to add a couple drops of water or maybe half a teaspoon, pinch of salt, pinch of pepper, and a little bit of fresh herbs. Put the lid on that and shake it. This salad dressing will actually be better tomorrow. So you make this. You put this in the fridge. You’re good to go. If you store this in the fridge, it will store in a fridge for a week easily. My asparagus is perfect. Slightly brown, you can see it shriveled a little bit which is one of the signs this can now be served hot. It can be served room temperature. It can be served cold. Whatever way you like it best. We’re going to serve this right away nice and hot. That lemon that pops in your mouth with the asparagus really makes this a really nice way to start your meal.