10-minute Lemony Pasta with Asparagus and Herbs

I mean, it's just that? But if you have to be willing to SALT it, okay?

Asparagus season coincides with every other favorite season of mine, including lilac season, dogwood season, bleeding heart season, lily of the valley season, unfurling fern season, and the season where every single tree is leafing out in such a heartbreaking shade of green that I almost can’t look. It is very “nature’s first green is gold” around here, and I moon around ruing the end even as it’s beginning, because that is the only true right way to be (ha ha ha, jk, I’m the worst).

Michael has been reading me to sleep at night? Our favorite picture books from when the kids were little. I can’t bear to say much more about this—either about how dear this person is to me after all of these weathered decades, or about the cause of this great and fretful insomnia—but one thing we’ve learned is that the line from William Steig’s brilliant Gorky Rises is not, as my family has always quoted it, “green green immensely green.” (I believe this is the Mandela Effect writ small.)

But it really is green, green immensely green, the world. For example, the view out our front door yesterday evening:

We changed the lock on this door last summer, which would not be especially noteworthy, except that when we bought the house the door was locked and we didn’t have the key and so for our first 15 years here we never opened it. The front door. Of the house we live in.

Anyhoo. Asparagus season! For the first few bunches, I like to barely boil them in a wide pan of salted water and serve them dead-simple with butter or brown butter and maybe a squeeze of lemon or a little shower of its zest. I like the big, fat ones. After that, I am happy to make other things with them. Like this rice salad. Or this roasted asparagus. Or this warm quinoa salad. Or this butter-braised asparagus. Or, apparently, this asparagus bread pudding, which I had completely forgotten about!

Friday night we were going to our friends’ gorgeous cider garden, and I blanched some asparagus (boiled until it just turned bright green), chilled it in cold water, dried it in a dish towel, cut it into pieces, and made a quick dip from 1/4 cup each mayo and sour cream, 2 tablespoons finely chopped pepperoncini, a little garlic, plenty of salt, lemon juice and grated zest, and slivered chives. It was ideal bar food.

Picture just for “I can pull a crudite platter out of my ass” vibes since this is, obviously, not asparagus.

But the pasta! Oh, it is perfect: lemony and herby and salty and a little oily in the best possible way, studded with these perfectly sweet little pieces of spring. I added a handful of wild sorrel because it is growing in our front yard and is so sharp and strange.

The sorrel is the one with the red-flowering stems. We call this “arrow sorrel” because of the leaf shape (but it’s really called sheep sorrel) to distinguish it from “heart sorrel” which looks like clover leaves made out of hearts (and which is actually called wood sorrel).

It’s not, like, a lot of food? But that’s okay because sorrel contains oxalic acid, which is mildly toxic. I probably picked 3 dozen leaves and took me 4 years.

If I had been planning ahead, I would have bought tiny little frozen peas and added some for their bursty sweetness. (Just put them in the colander and let the heat from the draining pasta cook them.)

10-minute Lemony Pasta with Asparagus and Herbs
You could brown the butter if you wanted, and it would shift the flavor profile from green and lemony to brown and rich. In that case, I would add some briny capers too, because I can’t resist a piccata situation. Also, I used a mix of regular garlic and green garlic because a friend left it in our fridge: it looks like scallions (or leeks if it’s bigger) and tastes sweetly garlicky and is lovely in every way. Okay, let me say one final annoying thing: if you’re using really good olive oil, don’t use all of it to cook the garlic and asparagus; leave some out and stir it in with the pasta at the end, so you keep some of that delicate flavor. This serves 3 very hungry people with enough leftover for one person’s breakfast.

12 ounces dried pasta (we are gluten-free, and this is our very favorite brand and shape)
6 tablespoons of butter and/or delicious olive oil (either or a mix)
3 cloves of garlic (and/or a few green garlic bulbs if you happen to have them)
A pinch of chili flakes (or not)
1 bunch of asparagus, woody ends snapped off, sliced diagonally into ½-inch pieces
The grated zest of 1 or 2 scrubbed lemons plus the juice of half of one
¼ cup of toasted pine nuts (or ½ cup butter-fried breadcrumbs*)
¼ cup (or more) of slivered fresh mint and/or parsley leaves
Lots of freshly grated parmesan

(* Melt one tablespoon of butter in a very small pan, and fry the breadcrumbs over medium heat until they are brown and crisp, around 5 minutes if they started as bread, less if they started as panko. Scrape them into a bowl when they’re done, so they don’t burn in the still-hot pan.)

Put a large pot of water on to boil and salt it heavily—like, with a big handful of salt. It doesn’t need to be quite salty as seawater, but if you taste it, it should actually taste more than faintly salty. You can prep the rest of the ingredients while the water boils, but don’t start cooking them yet—the dish will come together very, very quickly.

Put the pasta in the water, give it a stir, and set a timer for however long you think you should check it in. I’m not a fan of al dente pasta, for what it’s worth. I like it to be yielding and tender—especially gluten-free pasta, which somehow gets less tender after being drained? Put a colander in the sink and put a mug in it so you’ll remember to scoop out some of the pasta cooking water before you drain it all away.

Once the pasta is in, heat the butter and/or oil in a pan or Dutch oven, ideally one large enough to hold all the finished pasta (if you’re already using this pot for the pasta, then you can just use a smaller one and add the sauce to the pasta later, instead of the other way around). Add the garlic and/or green garlic and sauté over low heat until the garlic is just about to turn golden (you’ll need ESP for this). If the pasta is not about to be done, turn the heat off under the garlic, add a spoonful of water to stop it from burning, and leave this for now. But if the timing seems good, add the chili flakes and the asparagus and sauté until the asparagus just brightens—around 3 minutes (it will continue to cook over the next couple of minutes, so try to hit it right at the bright spot). If your pasta cooking water is not salty—And why is that? Hmmm?—then you’ll want to add a large pinch of salt during this stage. Otherwise it can wait.

When the pasta is done to your liking, scoop a mugful of water from the pot and keep it, then drain the pasta.

Add the pasta to the garlic pan along with a big splash of the cooking water and the lemon zest and juice, pine nuts (if you’re using breadcrumbs, top the dish with them at the very end), and herbs, and stir gently to combine. Taste it now and if it needs more salt or lemon juice, add it and then taste again. (If it’s undersalted it will be underdelicious.) Serve it with the parm for topping.

Sob!