A Light But Luscious Asparagus Bow-Tie Salad
Brought to you by the boys in the lab.
WE HAD A BIT OF A FRAZZLE THIS WEEK, here in the salad lab, over a couple of asparagus salads we were playing around with. I knew I wanted something fresh and super-green in both appearance and taste, so I was happy with that curly, pretty shaved asparagus salad you recently received.
But the boys in the lab also wanted an asparagus pasta salad; they’re in the third incarnation of their normcore phase, so they were imagining a 1980s bow tie (or farfalle) contraption. And: They wanted goat cheese, of course.
We got into an argument about that, involving a bit of hurt feelings and some childish stomping, especially after I referred to goat cheese as the salad-maker’s cheat. “It’s unfairly irresistible!” I yelled, even though I absolutely adore it. “It’s the cocaine of cheeses!”
That did it. They stormed out. I turned on some loud Sigur Rós (a band I once used as an extremely effective balm for grief, despite the fact that I don’t understand a word of Icelandic—or Hopelandic); then I took a nap. When I woke up, I had several texts with sad-face emojis and an apology from those knuckleheads. So as my apology back to them, I made their desired salad, which turned out beautifully. The goat cheese serves as a liberator of the springy flavors rather than as a heavy blanket.
The great secret about salad is this: As long as you’re using ingredients you love, the worst you can do is make a clumsy salad, or a lackluster one. And even then, adjustments can always be made. But to make a terrible salad from ingredients you love? You really have to put some elbow grease into that.
But just to be sure, I created two versions of this salad, with cheese-related adjustments. I tried it with tiny cubes of pecorino; it was quite nice but perhaps less invigorating. If you decide to make this substitution, use about ¾ of a cup of tinily diced pecorino in place of the goat cheese, and toss it with the salad rather than using it as a topping.