Roasted asparagus with feta, almonds and mint El Haliun (Al ajram)

To be served as a starter or a side dish

Serves 4

Other green veg work well here instead of the asparagus, when asparagus is not in season. Sugar snaps, French beans, long thin broccolini and baby courgettes, for example. The broccolini will need about the same amount of roasting time as the asparagus but the sugar snaps, courgettes and French beans will all need a couple of minutes less. Either way, this works well either as a starter, as it is, or as a side to something like baked fish (see p.000) or chicken Musakhan (p.000).

Getting ahead: the dressing can be made in advance, if you like: just keep the almonds separate until just before serving.

Ingredients

350g thick (or regular thin) asparagus spears (about 20), cleaned and any

tough ends snapped off (300g)

1 tbsp olive oil

Dressing

25g flaked almonds

2 tsp nigella seeds, roughly crushed in a pestle and mortar

1 large lemon, zest finely grated to get 2 tsp and then squeezed to get 1½

tbsp juice

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small garlic clove, crushed

¼ tsp caster sugar

Salt and black pepper

To serve

60g feta cheese, roughly crumbled

½ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes (or ¼ tsp regular chilli flakes)

About 10 small picked mint leaves

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175C.

Spread the almonds for the dressing out on a parchment-lined tray and roast for 7 minutes, until golden-brown. Tip into a bowl and set aside.

Increase the oven temperature to 200C. Place all the remaining ingredients for the dressing in a separate medium bowl with ¼ teaspoon of salt and a grind of black pepper. Whisk well to combine and set aside.

Lay the asparagus out on a large parchment-lined baking tray. Drizzle with the olive oil and toss to completely coat. Sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper and then roast for 20-22 minutes (or 15 minutes if starting with thinner stalked asparagus) until tender but still crisp.

Transfer to a large serving plate and scatter the cheese on top. Mix the almonds into the dressing and then spoon it all over the asparagus. Sprinkle over the mint leaves and chilli flakes and serve.