my jerusalem kitchen

Chag Sameach! Happy Passover! If you’re Ashkenazi, I’m sorry that this recipe will likely make you sad. Cheer up, you can always enjoy it next week when Passover ends. If you’re Sephardic, WAHOO! You’ll LOVE this recipe while you’re missing all your leavened goodies this week.

This is kind of like a two-in-one deal. The lemon + asparagus + tarragon makes a fantastic vegetarian side dish, but you can also chop it up to throw into this delicious, colorful rice dish. The lemons are infused with the licorice-ish essence, you toss in the whole rind (but it’s incredibly sweet!) and the asparagus are perfectly salty-tart. So delicious. I make this at least once a week now, in huge batches, and eat it cold like a salad for lunch or re-warm it up for dinner. I really hope you try this out because it’s super easy and delicious!

What you need:

1 1/2 meyer lemons; thinly sliced

1 bunch of asparagus; edges trimmed

2 heaping tablespoons of fresh tarragon; chopped

plenty of salt

1 tblsp olive oil

1 large or 2-3 small zucchinis; chopped (tossed with 1 tblsp oil, several shakes of salt & pepper) *optional

1/3 c dried, unsweetened cranberries

1 1/2 c wild rice (my wild rice had barley in it, but if you’re making this for Passover, just get a normal wild rice w/o the barley)

3 c water

A few shakes of garlic powder (*optional)

1 tsp salt

How to do it:

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Cook your rice with your garlic powder (optional). While your rice is cooking, roast the lemon, asparagus and tarragon. At this time, you can also add the zucchini if you’re using it – I don’t always. If you are, just toss them with oil, salt and pepper and when you remove them from the oven, chop them up and toss with everything else. (Sorry, no picture of the zucchini!)

 For the asparagus, spray a pan with PAM and arrange your sliced lemons across the pan.

 Toss asparagus with olive oil and salt.  Arrange asparagus over the lemons and sprinkle the tarragon all over the top. Place in oven for about 15 minutes or until the lemons begin to brown.

I know it’s messy, but when you remove them from the oven, slice the asparagus into 1-2 inch pieces and chop up the lemon. I suppose you could cut the asparagus first, but you can’t with the lemon.