Baguette is one of my favourite restaurants, and recent winner of Australia’s Most Popular French Restaurant award in the Lifestyle Food Channel 2010 I Love Food Awards. My boyfriend and I love it so much we’ve become regulars over the past 2 years. The food is always great, the service is friendly and efficient, they go out of their way to provide great vegetarian dishes, and we can always count on a dinner or lunch at Baguette to be a great time.
A while ago my boyfriend and I both took a day off work and walked to Baguette for a lunch. We had a lovely long lunch, and got talking to the staff over a few drinks, and before we knew it it was dinner time. Whilst we didn’t stay for dinner, as we were still too full from lunch, we walked home happy having had a wonderful afternoon.
One of the things I remember from that afternoon was the beautiful light summery pasta dish I enjoyed. I often find when you eat pasta to you get that heavy feeling,but this pasta was so light, bright and almost refreshing.
I’d wanted to attempt to make the dish for a while, but as my boyfriend doesn’t like asparagus (actually that should be hates asparagus to the point he jokingly banned it in our house) and asparagus is one of the key ingredients, I simply hadn’t got around to making it. Since he’s been away with work the last few weeks I took the opportunity to attempt to recreate it.
While it certainly wasn’t a perfect replica of the original, the basic flavours were there and it was a wonderful light pasta, almost reminiscent of a warm pasta salad.
Do you ever try to recreate restaurant dishes at home? What dishes have you tried to recreate and how have they turned out?
Asparagus, Broad Bean, Mint and Lemon Risoni
Serves 2
100g of risoni (orzo) pasta
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
3 spring onions, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, grated
1 cup of frozen broad beans
6 spears of asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2cm pieces
juice and zest of 1 small lemon (or 1/2 large)
1/3 cup of roughly chopped mint leaves
1/3 cup of shaved parmesan
1. Cook the pasta according to directions and set aside to drain.
2. While the pasta is cooking, cook the beans in a saucepan of boiling water for 5 minutes or until tender. Refresh under cold water. Peel and discard skins.
3. Place a frying pan over a medium heat and add the olive oil, spring onion and garlic and cook for a minute before adding the asparagus and broad beans. Cook until the asparagus is tender.
4. Add the cooked risoni, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and mint leaves and toss to combine.
5. Serve and garnish with the shaved parmesan.
I love risoni - great idea, now the weather is warming up it's good to find lighter dinners
Thanks Chanel :D I agree, it is good to make lighter meals during summer. There is nothing worse than that horrible over stuffed feeling when it's hot.
This sounds like a perfect and delicious way to get my pasta fix during summer. Thanks for sharing another gorgeous recipe :)
Thanks Lily :D
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It must be the time of year :) love the use or risoni here and all that lovely fresh mint and broad beans... yum!! A really beautiful looking pasta dish!
My recent post Mafalde Pasta w- Green Vegetables & Lemon
It definitely is that time of the year! Thanks for your lovely comments, as always Trudy :D
Sounds like a lovely refreshing dish. Photography is excellent, makes you hungry just looking at the it.
Thanks :D