Take advantage of the summer weather with this light lunch featuring asparagus and goats' cheese.

Serves 2

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 5 minutes

You’ll need:

For the batter
85g plain flour
2 tbsp cornflour
½ tsp salt
200ml ice cold sparkling water

Plus
2l vegetable oil
1 bundle (approx. 250g) British asparagus
125g soft goats’ cheese
1 tbsp really fragrant runny honey

What to do:

Mix together the batter ingredients in a bowl, but be sure not to over mix to ensure a really light batter. You're better off having a lumpy batter than a tough one. The batter needs to be kept really cold too, so add some ice cubes if you're worried and only make it when you can use it immediately.

Fill a deep fat fryer, very deep saucepan or wok one-third of the way up with the oil. Test the temperature by adding a small piece of bread. It's hot enough when the bread browns in 30 seconds.

Slice the British asparagus in half lengthways, then spread each half of the asparagus with some goats’ cheese. Sandwich them together so you have a lovely British asparagus stalk with a strip of goats’ cheese in the centre.

A few at a time, plunge the British asparagus and goats’ cheese strips into the tempura batter, then drop them into the hot oil. Fry for one minute or until crisp and golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper before serving immediately drizzled with the honey, a sprinkling of sea salt and a good grinding of black pepper.

Submitted by www.british-asparagus.co.uk