As it happens winter is high season for broccoli. It's a cold weather crop. So now is the time to dig in.
You have choices: these days there's more than the just plain broccoli of the past. There's broccolini--a skinnier Japanese hybrid of Italian broccoli and gai-lin, often called Chinese broccoli. There's broccoli rabe aka rapini, an Italian attempt to take broccoli back to its roots when ancient Italians crossbred broccoli out of cauliflower and turnip: being closer to the turnip makes rabe leafier and more bitter than the original Calabrese or green broccoli. And now there's the sci-fi looking Romanesco broccoli with its bizarre prickly heads and weird colors. Obviously some broccoli or other for everyone.
0riginal Italian bred green or Calabrese broccoli, the thickest of the lot, is traditionally steamed. This retains most of its powerful medical benefits. Once steamed, it can be stir fried with mushrooms, red bell peppers and perhaps pork or tofu. It can be served with ginger and lemon, see recipe in How to Fix a Leek and Other Food From Your Farmers' Market, and it can also be blanched then quickly made into Korean cold sesame broccoli, recipe in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking.
Better yet, original thick broccoli makes a warming winter soup. This way for 6-8:
3 cups broccoli, diced to 1/2"
1/4 c unsalted butter
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp flour
2 c half-and-half
3 c chicken broth
3/4 lb sharp Cheddar, grated
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper, ground
1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
Blanch broccoli in salted water, drain, and set aside.
Melt butter in a large saucepan, add onions and sauté until soft and translucent.
Add garlic and pepper flakes. Sauté 30 seconds. Whisk in flour and cook 2 minutes.
Whisk in half-and-half and broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer.
Stir in cheese. Add nutmeg, salt, pepper and mustard.
Put on minimum heat and add broccoli. OR you can puree the broccoli for a smooth soup.
Being Italian, broccoli likes sausage and being atop pizza with it. It likes being in a pasta salad with sopresata salami, roasted red peppers and toasted walnuts and Caesar dressing.
Spiky Romanesco broccoli can be broken into florets and roasted for 15 minutes at 400º with olive oil, sea salt, a pinch of red pepper flakes, some minced garlic and grated Pecorino cheese.
I adore broccoli rabe and simply prepare it by chopping it up and blanching it in salted water to leach out its turnip bitterness. Then I drain it carefully and toss it in a sauté pan lined with hot olive oil and freshly ground black pepper. I add in four large minced garlic cloves, a pinch of red pepper flakes and sauté on medium heat about 5 minutes. Then I pour on a little bit of really fruity olive oil and sprinkle a healthy dose of sea salt and just dig in. The next day I put this on pasta with canned fava beans and fresh lemon juice. Or put it under tofu coated and fried in cornmeal crust (see Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking). I use up the last tidbits in an omelet.
Broccoli rabe under cornmeal crusted tofu and red pepper sauce:
Broccolini is skinnier and slightly sweeter than standard Italian broccoli. It's got Chinese gai-lin in it. You can eat it raw in salads or just steam it for a minute to do the same. I am working on a recipe for farro with broccolini, toasted pine nuts and fresh lemon so please stay tuned. Broccolini makes great goma-e, the Japanese sesame sauce salad. A spinach goma-e recipe is in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking but all you have to do is grind toasted sesame seeds with soy sauce and sesame oil into a thin paste to put on your blanched broccolini. In honor of its Italian roots, broccolini will take a pesto dressing, which is to say dilute your pesto with oil and vinegar into a thin dressing. It's Chinese roots make it ideal for quick stir fries. It can be sublime with chunks of sweet potato or yam roasted until the sugar emerges.
And then there are broccoli sprouts.....
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