Buttered Eggs with Roasted Asparagus & Smoky Bacon

Another lovely day in the South West. It almost seems to be a Law of Nature down here that the weather is great except during school holidays! I am trying to make the most of it but I can’t cook, eat, blog, play with ice cream and generally try to be a writer and simultaneously spend my time wandering the great outdoors, which is a shame so here are some pics from recent walks.

Today’s lunch has been based around 3 asparagus stalks I had left in the fridge. Asparagus is almost a staple for me and I buy it every week whether I need it or not. I never boil, simmer, poach, steam or do anything else watery to it. I nearly always roast asparagus (sometimes I put it in stir fries) which intensifies the flavour and gives a crispy yet juicy, al dente texture.

How to Roast Asparagus

For my lunch I tossed a couple of rashers of smoked back bacon, diced, together with the asparagus so that it roasted too.

Asparagus
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

~   Preheat oven to a suitable hot-ish temperature – 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6 or so is good.
~   Prepare the asparagus - snap the asparagus tips from te stalks and then the stalks into pieces (discarding the end when it won’t snap any more).
~   Toss with some seasoning and enough olive oil to just coat and spread on a baking tray.
~   Put in the oven for a few minutes, shaking occasionally, till the tip of a knife goes in no trouble.

Scrambled Egg Statement

I have never ever whisked milk or cream into eggs for scrambling and in fact have usually called them, more appropriately, buttered eggs on menus. Julia Child did the same but she had a neat trick which I have now adopted; when just, just ready take off the heat and whisk in a knob of cold butter. This will stop them cooking any further, retain them at optimal creaminess and make them more delicious than ever. 

How to Scramble Eggs

~ Melt a generous knob of butter (about 15g/½oz) over medium heat in a small pan – non-stick preferably for washing up reasons.
~ Whisk two or three eggs together and pour into the partly melted butter and stir the two together.
~ Season and stir constantly over a low-ish heat.
~ As the eggs start to solidify fold them into the uncooked egg till you have a pan of softly cooked eggs.
~ Immediately stir in a little more cold butter.
~ Serve absolutely immediately.

For my lunch I stirred in the asparagus and bacon together with the final butter and served it on hot toast with a prodigious grind of black pepper. Yet again, a lovely lunch.

To round out this excellent meal of buttery scrambled eggs I ate a few freshly picked blackberries. 

We are at a disadvantage here in Cornwall because, unfortunately for us, the Devil spits on all the blackberries left after September so it does behove us all to eat them up as fast as we can.