Pasta salad with asparagus and speck is a tasty cold dish you can serve in summer in your daily menu or in a buffet party all year.
Its ingredients are: good-quality pasta, Italian speck, quail eggs, fresh asparagus, onions, aromatic herbs and good-quality olive oil.
Here's the recipe!

Clean and cook the asparagus. The bottom stem of the asparagus spread is tough and you have to discard it and use only the upper part. Then wash them accurately beneath cold running water. Finally slice the asparagus tips and put them apart.
Slice the remaining parts of the asparagus stems. The following step is to cook them.
Put a tablespoon olive oil in a pan, add the onions and fry lightly on low heat. Add the asparagus pieces, let them flavor, stirring, for few minutes. Then cover with hot stock (you can also use only water) and keep on cooking on low heat, stirring now and then, for 10-15 minutes (ten minutes if you like asparagus crunchy). Let the cooking juice reduce very well.
Add the asparagus tips and all the aromatic herbs a couple of minutes before switching off the gas.

Cook the quail eggs. Put the quail eggs in a little pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil: boil them only for 4 minutes.
Plug them into very cold water as soon as they are cooked; this helps loosen their shell.
Crack every egg around its center and, gently, roll it on a work surface until the eggshell is cracked all around the center. Peel the eggshell away from the white.
Wash them under cold running water and dry gently before using if there are some shell pieces left.
Separate the whites from the yolks.

Prepare the sauce. Put the yolks in a large bowl and mash them with a fork.
Cut the white eggs into little pieces and add to the bowl.
Transfer the asparagus sauce too.
Cut the speck into thin strips and add to the bowl.
Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and season to taste with salt, stir with delicacy.
The sauce is ready!

Cook the pasta. Cook the pasta al dente stage following the instructions written on the package or our istructions.
Drain the pasta and run under cold water in order to stop cooking, drain again.

The last step. Transfer the pasta into the bowl and stir accurately and with delicacy.
Your dish is ready!.

Note

• - Choose always good-quality pasta and the kind of short pasta you prefer to make a tasty pasta salad.
• - We suggest to make this pasta salad 1 hour ahead to have the best result.
  If you make it in the morning to eat in the evening chill it until one hour before serving.
  
• - You can also use frozen asparagus (450 g - 1 lb). In this way you can make asparagus-and-speck pasta salad all year even when you can find no fresh asparagus.
• - The question that some of you are doing is: why quail eggs and not hen eggs? Read more on the blog ...
• - If you have little time substitute fresh aromatic herbs with dried ones.
• - You can make this asparagus-and-speck pasta salad in summer for your family and all year if you have to plan a buffet party for a great occasion. Read more on our blog ...
• - What are the most important rules to make a tasty pasta salad? Read more ...

Healthy eating

• - Pasta salad is a dish rich in ingredients and so it is necessary to calculate the right amount of everything we use not to exceed calories, fat and sugars.
• - Daily menu. Note the amount of calories, fat and protein and the combination of its ingredients. It can be only one-plate meal. Protein are included in the pasta dish and you needn't a second course. Complete your meal with fresh seasonal fruit. We remember pasta should be eaten preferably at lunch and the calories eaten at lunch should be 500 - 700 (30 - 35% of energy needs for an adult if his daily needs are about 2000 calories and he correctly divides his calories into 5 micro-meals).
  Here are the doses per head: 60 to 70 g (2 1/4oz to 2 1/2oz) pasta, 150 to 200 g (5 1/4oz to 7 1/4oz) fresh asparagus, 2 to 3 quail eggs, 20 to 25 g ( 3/4oz to 1oz), aromatic herbs and onions with no limit and one tablespoon olive oil.
• - Special occasion menu. Don't worry about fat, calories, sugars ... it happens rarely, doesn't it?
• - As you can see it's a tomato-free recipe, ideal for people intolerant or alergic to tomatoes.
• - If you want to drink a glass of wine remember you have to add 80-85 kCal per 100 ml.
• - If you want to know more about Italian pasta and its nutrition value read this page.
• - We remember you our original home recipes can be made without salt; there is a combination of flavours that substitutes salt. Other salt-free recipes ...

What's the right wine for " Pasta salad with asparagus and speck " ?

Our suggestion is: Alcamo bianco (white wine of Sicily - Italy) and Collio Pinot Grigio (white wine of Friuli - Italy)