Connie’s notes
Oven toaster? Seriously? Yep. Less time to preheat and less power consumption too. Of course, if you want to make a huge bunch of this delectable finger food, it will be more practical to use a large tray and roast the parcels in a regular oven.
Why salami?
Because it’s salty enough to skip seasoning the asparagus spears before wrapping. Because salami has enough fat to act as binder to prevent the wrapping from unfolding during roasting. But probably the most important reason is because we love salami.What is salami?
Salami is a cured sausage. Any meat can be made into salami but pork is most common. To make salami, the meat is fermented before the mixture is stuffed into casings to form large sausages which are hung to air-dry and cure. The flavor and color of salami develop as a result of the fermentation of carbohydrates by lactic acid bacteria. Definitely not a home project. We buy our salami pre-sliced from the deli. And we keep it in the freezer until we need it. After all, cured but uncooked meat has a short shelf life and no one wants to get food poisoning from bad food handling.Does salami need to be cooked?
Like most cured meat, salami can be eaten directly. We love salami for making quick sandwiches. But we love cooking salami too. We chop it and add it to pasta meat sauce, for example. Using thin slices of salami to wrap vegetables and roasting the parcels is also a great way to enjoy salami. Tip: The level of saltiness of salami varies from one sausage maker to another. How many slices of salami you will need to wrap each bunch of asparagus depends largely on how salty your salami is. In this recipe, I used a 1:1 ratio. That’s one slice of salami for every asparagus spear.Ingredients
- 24 asparagus spears
- 24 slices salami
- grated Pecorino to garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven toaster to 350F.
- Rinse the asparagus spears, drain and dry by wrapping in a kitchen towel.
- Bend each spear and allow the woody end to break off naturally. Discard the woody ends.
- Arrange three salami slices on a plate so that they slightly overlap.
- Lay three asparagus spears on one edge of the overlapping salami slices so that the tops are exposed.
- Roll the salami to completely cover the bottom halves of the asparagus spears.
- Do the same with the remaining salami slices and asparagus.
- Line a baking tray with foil and arrange the salami-wrapped asparagus in a single layer.
- Pop the tray into the oven toaster and cook the salami-wrapped asparagus for ten minutes.
- Transfer the roasted salami-wrapped asparagus to a plate, optionally grate Pecorino over them and serve at once.
Tofu in oyster sauce
