Pasta Primavera With Shaved Asparagus And Sugar Snap Peas

Use a vegetable peeler to turn fresh asparagus into thin ribbons. They'll soften just enough and retain fantastic flavor when tossed with the hot cooked pasta.

Servings: 4

Author: Hannaford fresh Magazine, March April 2024

Ingredients

1 (16-oz) box penne rigate
½ lb. asparagus ends trimmed
2 Tbsp. olive oil
½ (15-oz) bag sugar snap peas, ends trimmed
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup nonfat Greek yogurt room temperature
⅓ cup chopped green onions
1 lemon

Instructions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil on medium-high. Cook penne pasta until al dente. Meanwhile, lay 1 asparagus spear flat on a cutting board. Using a vegetable peeler, start at the bottom of asparagus and shave into long, thin strips. Repeat with remaining asparagus.
Heat oil in a large skillet on medium-high. Add snap peas and asparagus. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, until vegetables are tender but not too soft or mushy. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
Drain pasta and transfer to a large bowl, reserving ½ cup pasta water. Add snap peas and asparagus to pasta along with Parmesan, yogurt and green onions. Zest 2 teaspoons lemon and stir into pasta. Drizzle in half of pasta water and toss to combine. Add additional pasta water as needed to make a creamy sauce. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Garnish with more lemon zest, if desired.

Notes

Bryan's Notes:

This turned out to be a relatively simple dish that was very pleasant for a light, vegetarian meal. But shaving the asparagus was a pain. It took a while, and when the asparagus spear got thin from removing shavings, the recessed peeler had more and more trouble. I ended up collecting all the spear bottoms that had not been shaved sufficiently, and then slicing them finely.

Which led me to think: "Why not just slice the spears thinly, perhaps on an oblique diagonal?". Much faster, and not too different. Perhaps it might require slightly more cooking, but that's not a problem.

I also found trimming the sugar snap ends to be a pain. I had bought a package of what looked like small pods. Unfortunately, small did not equate to young, and trimming the ends was difficult because they were tough, and because there were lots of them (small pods). If you can find them, I suggest you get larger and younger pods.