This week, it was suggested that I look for different ways to wrap asparagus. "Great!" I thought, as I love asparagus. Browsing recipes, though, I realized that in addition to loving asparagus, I'm quite the particular eater. I don't eat pork and I can't do gluten, which means I can't eat anything with flour.
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My food exclusions have never been a problem before, but apparently some of the best wrapped-asparagus recipes include pork and flour.
Now, just because pork and flour are forbidden foods in my world doesn't mean I don't understand they're two of the biggest joys of the food world.
The first, and most popular, recommendation is to wrap prosciutto around the spears. This recipe and photo comes from Eat Drink Paleo. The website says to buy prosciutto sliced paper-thin from a deli. The prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spears can be stored in the fridge until ready to cook, and they are best served straight off the grill. Ingredients needed: asparagus, prosciutto, and ghee -- only three. That's what I like to see.
The second-most popular way to wrap asparagus is using puff pastry or phyllo dough. The photo below comes from a recipe from Country Living. In this case they're using puff pastry, along with some herbs and freshly grated Parmesan.
I settled on wrapping my asparagus in a rice tortilla with swiss cheese and some balsamic reduction drizzled on top. An asparagus quesadilla, basically. It had never occurred to me to put asparagus in a quesadilla. Frittatas and omelets, yes, but not quesadillas. I got the idea from a blog called Foodtasticmom. She suggests using Boursin and havarti cheeses, but I had only swiss, so I went with that.
Though the quesadilla was good, and the photos of prosciutto and pastry-wrapped spears are lovely, I think I'll keep my tradition of simply roasting them with a little olive oil and salt at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.
