Asparagus!

Asparagus season shouldn't open until the spring, but Aarhus greengrocers have been flooded with it recently – much to my satisfaction. Cooking for two last week was wonderful. We had asparagus with melon and prsut, with carpaccio and eggs, with serrano and Parmesan. And in this brilliant salad, tossed gently with lamb's ear, dates and walnuts, and served alongside openface rye, smoked salmon and red onion sandwiches.

In the salad, the asparagus are simply lightly sautéed in olive oil, just long enough to bring out their colour. The lamb's ear is tossed on its own with a sprinkling of olive oil and balsamic, and the salad is rounded out with quartered medjool dates and walnuts. We dry-toasted the walnuts to build their flavour and get them warm. The salad is perfectly balanced on the winter-spring boundary, with rich colours and textures of the winter but also the promise of asparagus season and the spring to come.

No recipe needed. It's as simple and good as it sounds.