Asparagus Bruschetta with Goat's Cheese

Sugarapsa. Wondering what that is? It’s just asparagus written backwards. :)
I bought Asparagus for the first time the other day. I have eaten it before, but have never tried cooking with it. That’s because it’s a spring/summer vegetable and I am in Germany only since November last year. Last week was the first time I saw asparagus in the supermarkets. It’s not the German produce yet. That will come out only around May and the first batch will be celebrated the way first mangoes are in India. Germans’ passion is for white asparagus, though I have chosen the green variety for my experiment.

I have already tried using it in three different dishes. I want to blog about all of them, but for starters I have chosen an appetizer recipe. (Got the joke? Hee hee hee) It is based on a recipe by the same name (without the goat’s cheese part) by Tarla Dalal, but I have changed it in the procedure as well as in the ingredients section. Here it goes.

Asparagus Bruschetta with Goat’s Cheese

Makes 16 pieces.


Clockwise from right: goat's cheese, asparagus spears, readymade herb butter, ready-to-bake baguette, yellow pepper

Ingredients:

1 long ready-to-bake baguette (or two short ones as I have used)
3-4 asparagus spears
1 tiny yellow pepper (I used half of a large one)
approx. 40 g./ 4 tsp readymade herb butter (or you could make it at home by mixing butter with some garlic and dried parsley)
approx. 50 g. goat’s cheese (mozzarella should be fine too)
1-2 tsp crushed dried chillis/paprika

Method:

From left: plain baguette slice, with herb butter, with all toppings

1. Prepare the herb butter, in case not using readymade product.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (395°F?).
3. Cut the asparagus spears in 1 to 1.5 inch long pieces.
4. Put them in a microwave safe dish and sprinkle some water over them. Microwave them on HIGH for about a minute.
5. Cut the yellow pepper into strips.
6. Cut the ready-to-bake baguette vertically into slices. Spread the herb butter on them.
7. Arrange the slices butter side up on a baking tray. Arrange the asparagus pieces, yellow pepper strips and pieces/slices of the goat’s cheese on the buttered baguette slices. Sprinkle the crushed dried chillis/paprika on them. Your raw bruschettas are ready.
8. Now bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese melts.

Serve them as appetizers. In case offering red wine to go with it, I would recommend the ‘Vin de Pays d’Oc Grand Sud Grenache’. I think it goes well with all Indian, Italian, Mediterranean dishes, basically dishes with a robust flavour.

By the way, I would like to send this recipe as my entry to My Dhaba's Virtual Cooking Competition.