We’ve had some haddock taking up space in the freezer for months. Haddock is probably my favourite white fish; ever since I remember I’ve always ordered haddock over cod if it’s available in a fish & chip shop. So it really is about time I cooked it up!

Various food magazines and website have been pointing out that asparagus is in season. Well, when they’re not trying to make me bake a layer cake: what’s with the sudden layer cake fashion?

While checking over my spreadsheet of cooking ideas (yay spreadsheets!) I saw I wanted to try making pesto.

So: haddock, asparagus, pesto. A quick Google says this isn’t crazy, and a Google for just asparagus pesto brought up a nice looking recipe.

It’s American, so it’s all bunches, handfuls & cups… but as we’re cooking not baking I can live with that. Add haddock, grilled with lemon and piri piri seasoning, and we have a meal!

So… send recipe to kitchen tablet, and we’re off!

It all start with the pasta: homemade of course :) I weigh out an egg…

And according to my favourite cooking book, Ratio, it’s two parts flour to one part egg for flour, so 100g of 00 pasta flour:

I mix together with a fork until it’s starting to form a dough. This takes some proper elbow grease with the fork…

Then I bring together with my hand to form a floury dough ball:

Then I knead until the dough is springy and smooth, about six minutes this time:

Then it’s into the fridge to chill while I work on the pesto:

Pine nuts need toasting. As we’re doing cups, I break out our matryoshka cup set to measure:

Then toast them:

While the asparagus boils for about three minutes, the baby spinach, 3/4 of the toasted pine nuts, & maybe half a cup of grated parmesan (not the whole cup from the recipe). There should also be garlic… but I forgot: DOH! Recipe says two cloves, so I should have put in t least four ;)

Once the asparagus is boiled the tips come off and the stalks get blitzed. This meant I had to re-boil the tips later… and they were a bit soggy. If I did it again I’d chop the tips off and cook them separately at the end.

Then I add olive oil while it’s blitzing. As I’m going to heat the sauce I’ve just used cheap olive oil, not the extra virgin Greek stuff.

Finally it’s lemon & seasoning:

With the pesto done, it’s back to pasta. Get the pasta machine out: roll, fold, repeat on the widest setting:

Once it’s all springy again, I start reducing the thickness so it starts getting longer…

Then it’s through the cutter part to make linguini, which is like spaghetti, except spaghetti is all rolled and round rather than just a cut flat sheet. I add lots of flour at this point to keep it from sticking to itself; it all falls off when cooked, so it’s no extra calories :D

Now it’s fish time: fresh lemon juice, piri piri seasoning, under the grill:

Then we hit the timing every to serve at once problem… pesto in the frying pan heating up, asparagus tips heating, pasta cooking…

Then pasta added to the pesto…

Plate up, parmesan and… SERVICE!

Despite slightly soggy asparagus tips, and a lack of garlic in the pesto… it was really good. The pasta/pesto was great, and when added to the piri piri haddock: #winning.