The festive season in South Africa always presents some sort of chef's dilemma — what to serve guests that's tasty, not too heavy, and quick and easy to prepare.

To me a summer starter should always be light and preferably without a rich sauce, which is why I love using fresh vegetables, especially tasty morsels such as waterblommetjies, asparagus, artichokes and others of this ilk.

One of my favourites is fresh asparagus because it's such a pleasure to work with and you can dress it up a million different ways.

I love wrapping asparagus with ham, preferably Parma, but traditional smoked or baked ham tastes just as good. It's also a good way of making full use of the left-over ham from the previous day's roast.

But for today's recipe we will use smoked salmon and for a little extra flavour add a few shavings of good Parmesan cheese (and please don't use those ghastly packets of grated Parmesan that smells and tastes like cat wee). If you can find a decent piece of Parmesan rather use any other good, firm, matured cheese.

To serve four portions you need:

Recipes:

Instructions:

Steam the asparagus for 10 15 minutes, depending on size. They must be done, but still firm. Set aside to cool.

Lay out the smoked salmon strips and place a few shavings of Parmesan on each strip, then place an asparagus spear on each strip, add black pepper, and roll up.

Place three or four of the asparagus wraps on four individual plates and decorate with lemon quarters.