Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus

I always thought bacon was expensive because I remembered browsing in a supermarket once and was quite bowled over by the prices for a few pcs of cured pork belly. I mean I could get that much pork belly (raw) at a fraction of the price. However I was at NTUC Finest the other day and I came across a packet of their house brand bacon which cost about $4 for about 8 pcs. Well yeah, it was still rather expensive but compared to other brands, that was the cheapest of the lot.

So I got a packet and was quite stoked to prepare bacon at home. For the record, I’ve rarely eaten bacon before this. I think I’ve probably eaten it less than 5 times in my life, and usually they only tend to be bacon bits in pastas. Cooking bacon is a breeze as you don’t have to season them anymore and they have already been sliced so you only have to give them a quick wash and proceed to cook them the way you want.

I divided the packet into 2 portions and for the first half, I baked them in the oven and had them with eggs and some sautéed vegetables. For the remaining portion, I wanted to do something fancy (lol) and since I had asparagus, why not do bacon-wrapped asparagus?

I used:

a packet of long asparagus (chop off the bottom if they are too long)

bacon

butter

grated peppercorn

Only 4 ingredients to make this easy-peasy dish!

- lay the bacon on a baking tray and rub a small block of butter over them to coat them evenly (you can also leave the butter out to melt and brush it on the bacon using a flat brush)

- do the same for the asparagus

- i also sprinkled some rosemary and thyme on the bacon which you can skip if you don't have the herbs

- proceed to divide the asparagus between the number of bacon slices you have

- wrap the bacon around each portion of the asparagus and lay them on the baking tray

- when done, sprinkle grated peppercorn generously over like this:

- preheat your oven to 200°C

- place the bacon-wrapped asparagus into the oven and bake at 150°C for 15 – 20 mins

I had a small strip of bacon left which I chopped up and added into the eggs. This was an easy and fuss-free dish and the next time I do it, I’ll use shorter asparagus as they are more tender and easier to pop into your mouth.