We love cooking multiple varieties of Asian food at home, but a lot of the main dishes we’ve made don’t have a whole lot of what we call “vegetables” in them. Sometimes we don’t care, and just slap it on some rice or noodles and call it a meal. Other times we’ve used a simple vegetable stir fry, or our excellent Thai-style Green Beans. But recently, we did our Spicy Mint Beef (or was it the Mongolian Beef?) and Kung Pao Chicken within a couple days of each other. When we decided to do our Pad Thai (recipe coming soon) recipe at the end of the week, we needed a new vegetable side, and asparagus was on sale, so I got some (we’re fiscally conservative like that).
A little bit of online research gave me a couple of options, but I quickly settled on a grilled asparagus recipe from About.com, as it looked tasty, relatively easy, and involved grilling, which regular readers know is always an attractant for me. I do grilled asparagus pretty regularly, usually just with a balsamic vinaigrette marinade or something like that, but this one used oyster sauce, lime juice, and red chili, which is another attractant for me.
Turned out that it was great! It was We were quite pleased with it and it was as easy as the recipe looked. It will definitely be added to the repertoire for future meals that require an Asian-ish side.
- 1 Bunch asparagus
- 2 Tbsp oyster sauce
- 4 Cloves garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 Red chile, minced, or ½ tsp dried crushed chiles, or 2 dried red chiles, chopped
- Break off ends of asparagus and rinse well
- Mix oyster sauce, garlic, lime juice, brown sugar and chile
- Place asparagus in a resealable plastic bag, add marinade, and mix to distribute evenly on asparagus
- Let marinade for up to an hour
- Grill asparagus (reserving remaining marinade in bag) on oiled grates, or use a non-stick grill grate until slightly browned on parts of the outside, about ten minutes, rotating once
- Put on serving plate and drizzle with leftover marinade from bag (because it wasn’t used with meat, it is safe uncooked)
- Serve with rice and whatever other Asian main dish you’ve prepared
