Linguine with English asparagus and salsa verde | Lawrence Murphy

I’ve found that I’ve lost a bit of speed in the jobs I do, and my concentration wanes looking out at the blue skies watching the seagulls play in the wind.

I don’t have the midday deadline to reach followed by the 7pm opening to push me to get the jobs finished but I’m sure my pace will increase over the next week and I’ll be whizzing away as usual.

Having spent a little longer in the commercial kitchen meant I needed to sort dinner at home without having the past few weeks’ extra hours I’ve been used to.

A quick dinner has to be pasta, and as the English asparagus is so good at the moment I combined the two, with some fresh salsa verde, to make this really tasty dish.

Ingredients – serves 4

Tablespoon chopped parsley

Tablespoon chopped chives

Tablespoon chopped mint

Dessertspoon capers, chopped

12 green olives, stoned and chopped

75ml olive oil

Teaspoon grain mustard

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

400g linguine

2 bunch asparagus

2 shallots, finely chopped

100ml white wine

Method

1. Make the salsa verde by mixing all of the ingredients together. You can put all the ingredients in a blender if you want but the traditional way is to hand-chop it.

2. Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water until just under-cooked.

3. While the pasta is cooking, heat a small pan over a medium heat and add a little olive oil.

4. Cook the shallots for 1 min then add the white wine.

5. As the white wine reduces away, cut the tough stalky bottom off the asparagus and discard.

5. Cut the asparagus into small pieces and add to the pan.

6. Cook for 3 mins and remove from the heat. Taste and season.

7. Mix in the salsa verde, drain the pasta and mix in the asparagus and salsa verde.