The art of Italian cooking: asparagus-and speck pasta salad

Hi, this is the fifty first post about the art of cooking Italian pasta. Enjoy the last fresh asparagus of this season with this pasta salad recipe idea.

Pasta salad with asparagus and speck.

Pasta salad with asparagus and speck

Its ingredients are: good-quality Italian pasta, asparagus, speck (Italian salami), quail eggs, aromatic herbs, onion and good-quality extra virgin olive oil.

Speck is a juniper-flavored ham originally from Tyrol in Italy. Tyrol is a famous mountain region in the north of Italy. Like prosciutto and other ham speck is made from the  hind leg of the pig but the leg is boned. Italian speck has some similar characteristics to smoked bacon and so if you don’t find it you can substitute speck with smoked bacon.

Surely some of you are asking why we use quail eggs and not hen eggs. The answer is simple. You need 5 quail eggs to make one hen egg. So using quail eggs is a way to control fat and calories.

Here are some recipe ideas to plan a summer dinner party or a buffet party Italian-style

Cheese and cherry on the skewers

Ascolana olives

Asparagus-and speck pasta salad

Meatballs, Calabria-style

Sicilian caponata

An Italian dessert

Interested in all our entries? Read all our posts on this page

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta