Oven toaster? Seriously? Yep. Less time to preheat and less power consumption too. Of course, if you want to make a huge bunch of this delectable finger food, it will be more practical to use a large tray and roast the parcels in a regular oven.
Why salami?
Because it’s salty enough to skip seasoning the asparagus spears before wrapping. Because salami has enough fat to act as binder to prevent the wrapping from unfolding during roasting. But probably the most important reason is because we love salami.
What is salami?
Salami is a cured sausage. Any meat can be made into salami but pork is most common. To make salami, the meat is fermented before the mixture is stuffed into casings to form large sausages which are hung to air-dry and cure. The flavor and color of salami develop as a result of the fermentation of carbohydrates by lactic acid bacteria.
Definitely not a home project. We buy our salami pre-sliced from the deli. And we keep it in the freezer until we need it. After all, cured but uncooked meat has a short shelf life and no one wants to get food poisoning from bad food handling.
Does salami need to be cooked?
Like most cured meat, salami can be eaten directly. We love salami for making quick sandwiches. But we love cooking salami too. We chop it and add it to pasta meat sauce, for example. Using thin slices of salami to wrap vegetables and roasting the parcels is also a great way to enjoy salami.
In this recipe, we’re using asparagus spears which need to be trimmed so that the fibrous woody portions are left out. Don’t know where the good part ends and the tough part begins? Just bend the asparagus. It will naturally break in the exact spot where the tender and tough parts meet.
With the asparagus spears prepped, you start wrapping them up. How many asparagus spears and how many slices of salami for each parcel depends on the thickness of the asparagus and the size of the salami. The bottom line is that the asparagus spears need to be enfolded and the ends of the salami should overlap so that the parcels don’t unfurl during the short cooking time.
You arrange the salami-wrapped asparagus on the baking tray of your toaster oven, you pop it in and, ten minutes later, they’re ready for you to enjoy.
Roasted salami-wrapped asparagus
Ingredients
- 24 asparagus spears
- 24 slices salami
- grated Pecorino - to garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Rinse the asparagus spears, drain and dry by wrapping in a kitchen towel.
- Bend each spear and allow the woody end to break off naturally. Discard the woody ends.
- Arrange three salami slices on a plate so that they slightly overlap.
- Lay three asparagus spears on one edge of the overlapping salami slices so that the tops are exposed.
- Roll the salami to completely cover the bottom halves of the asparagus spears.
- Do the same with the remaining salami slices and asparagus.
- Line a baking tray with foil and arrange the salami-wrapped asparagus in a single layer.
- Pop the tray into the oven and cook the salami-wrapped asparagus for ten minutes.
- Transfer the roasted salami-wrapped asparagus to a plate, optionally grate Pecorino over them and serve at once.
