Animal Writings

Broccoli
You know it well. Many people love it or hate it, and there may even be a genetic component that influences how much you like broccoli. But genes aren't destiny. If you avoided broccoli as a child, and haven't had it for a while, I urge you to give it another try. There are many ways you can cook broccoli, and it also blends well with other vegetables. It's a powerhouse of nutrition—delivering decent amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A, folic acid, and numerous phytochemicals that appear to lower cancer risk. Broccoli also contains vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. One cup of cooked broccoli has as much Vitamin C as an orange.

As usual, fresh is the bomb, but you can get excellent results with frozen, which is what I usually use. A good compromise is to buy fresh broccoli already cut-up, which is available at many stores. You'll pay a bit of a premium, but if buying pre-cut broccoli saves you time, enhances flavor, and enables you to eat more of this nutrient-dense vegetable, the extra buck you shell out may be well worth it.


Easy Way: Steaming (Guaranteed Results)

Partake and enjoy
If need be, review basic instructions for steaming here. I usually lay in an entire small bag of frozen broccoli (about a cup), or half a large "family size" bag of broccoli, or the entire pack of pre-cut broccoli florets, or—if you're feeling ambitious—the florets and thinner part of the stems from two medium heads of broccoli. Basically, if I have a lot of broccoli, I fill the pot until it's mostly full but with a little breathing and maneuvering room.

Steam for about 5 to 8 minutes, possibly a bit longer if you have a lot of broccoli, or the flame is low; a little shorter if you like the broccoli crisp. Every couple of minutes (maybe a little more frequently toward the end), rearrange the broccoli with tongs so the top pieces go to the bottom and vice versa. Be looking at the color and tenderness of the broccoli as you're doing this, to gauge how it's coming along; feel free to taste a piece when you think it's almost done.

The broccoli is ready when it's just barely not crisp, when a fork penetrates it easily but the broccoli still offers some resistance. You want the broccoli to be bright green, not yellowish. Better to err on the side of not quite done; you can always nuke it for another 30-60 seconds if need be.

For seasonings, I recommend fresh lemon juice and freshly ground pepper. This is one time when you'll really appreciate the taste boost from fresh. But don't worry, you can have perfectly good broccoli with bottled lemon juice—I do it all the time. You can also add a little salt, some garlic powder or minced garlic (yes, you can just scoop a spoonful from the jar of minced garlic that you bought at the store and now keep around as a staple), some onion powder, or one of those no-salt spice blends that you've had on the spice rack for some time. But first, just try the broccoli with the lemon juice and pepper. Freshly steamed broccoli sprinkled with those two adornments has a nice, straight-ahead, bright, bold—some might even say-mouth-watering—flavor. Healthy food can taste wonderful.

Steamed broccoli goes superbly with (or on top of, or mixed in with) rice, pasta, and many other vegetables. It's great in stir-fries, sauces, and soups. We'll get to that soon.


Stir-Frying, ala Good Housekeeping, 1980 (With Some Modifications)
There are a million decent recipes for stir-frying broccoli on the Net. For some reason, I wanted to see if my old Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook had had anything to offer on the subject. It was a trusty cookbook back in the day, but it has little in common with my diet now. I keep it around for nostalgic reasons, I guess.

I made this dish for three people (two meat-eaters and one almost-vegan) and the reviews, respectively, were "blah," "not too bad," and "great." It took 10 minutes to prepare at a leisurely pace.

Here's the breakdown. Ingredients are bolded.


1. The original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of "salad oil." "Salad oil?" I used a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of "high-heat" canola oil.
   
   You can heat "high heat" canola oil to a higher temperature than regular canola oil before it starts smoking. When oil smokes, it releases unhealthy free radicals into itself, and ultimately into you. I don't know for sure if I need high heat canola oil, since I rarely cook on high when I have oil in the pan—the thought is somewhat fearsome—but it satisfies my paranoia. I'm finding high heat canola oil in more and more stores.
   
   Anyway, put the oil in a wide pan and heat it for about a minute. The recipe calls for high heat. I compromised at medium-high.


2. Add in the broccoli. I used a bag of frozen broccoli. If you've had the bag in the freezer for months, please stand back when you drop the contents in the pan. There might be accumulated ice on the vegetables which will cause the hot oil to splatter on contact.


3. Stir the broccoli around for a couple of minutes.


4. Add 1/4 cup of water. Turn the heat down a notch—still above medium. Add 3-4 shakes of salt and a couple pinches of sugar. The recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. I think that would make it too sweet. But, note that due to genetics, some people may be more prone than normal to find broccoli bitter. If you fall into this category, try a little more sugar than I used.


5. Cover the pan and cook for 2 minutes.


6. Uncover the pan and cook for another 5 to 6 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the broccoli is "tender-crisp."

I like the taste and feel of stir-fried broccoli. It's a little more up-front than steamed, and it has that nice crisp edge and some fullness from the oil that seeped in.

The recipe is an interesting three-step progression. First you sear the broccoli, then you sort of boil it, then you sauté it.

If recent history is any guide, at least two out of three of your guests will be pleased with the outcome.


Slightly Avant-Garde Broccoli
How about this for the day after tomorrow: Broccoli with Cilantro and Garlic?

Cilantro has a wonderful aromatic but understated flavor. It's excellent in Mexican and Thai cuisine, and in many other types of dishes. I'd never seen it in a broccoli side dish recipe—not that I'm Mr. Cilantro Expert.

Cilantro is one herb where you pretty much have to go with fresh. The dried version (IMHO) tastes nothing like the fresh herb.

Also—fair and balanced reporting—note that there is a small anti-cilantro contingent that thinks the herb tastes like soap.

I made the recipe pretty much as it said, with these changes:


• When the steamed broccoli was done, I didn't transfer it to a serving bowl. Trying to cut down on dishes. I put the broccoli back in the pot I used for steaming, after pouring the water out of the pot.


• On the advice of a reviewer, I cut back the cilantro to 1/4 cup. Also, 1/3 cup just seemed like a lot, especially since this was an experiment.
  
  By the way, I cut the cilantro using a small knife, kind of bunching the cilantro together, slicing it several times, re-bunching the cilantro, slicing it from a slightly different angle, and so on, until the pieces are small. They don't have to be tiny. Maybe three rounds of slicing does it. With cilantro and some other herbs, it helps to have a sharp knife and to use some pressure so you don't end up sliding over the herbs and scoring rather than slicing them.


• I was out of white wine vinegar, so I used rice vinegar. "How bad could that be?" I thought. Seemed to work out fine.


• I used about a half a teaspoon of minced garlic from the jar. From now on, in this series, I'm probably not going to point this out every time.


• When the sauce was ready (it didn't take long), I added the broccoli to the skillet, added a pinch of salt and a couple ample grinds of pepper, and cooked everything together at medium-low for a minute.

The results were very good. Slightly off the beaten path. My wife and I finished it off, no problem. I think the greater variety you have in your vegetable repertoire, both in terms of number of vegetables that you eat, and the diversity of ways you prepare them, the more you'll be motivated to include lots of vegetables in your diet. So consider this dish one of what I hope will be an ever-increasing number of options in the vegetable portion of your diet.


The Joy of Roasting Broccoli
Here's a great winter recipe for a Friday or Saturday night when you don't have much going on: Mediterranean Roasted Broccoli and Tomatoes. Yes, it takes slightly more time than the 15-minute limit I'm trying to stay within in this series, but a good chunk of that time is spent doing nothing, just waiting for the vegetables to roast. That's one of the nice things about roasting vegetables on a chilly night: It's almost like sitting around the fire. Veganomicon describes roasting as follows: "While the stove top might be seeing a lot of chaotic action, there is an oasis of serenity down below as our little friends do their thing and roast away."

Broccoli and tomatoes are a fantastic combination. The only thing I did differently when making this recipe was use only one instead of two tablespoons of capers, because of my fear of capers. Also, the nearby Whole Foods was strangely out of frozen broccoli. They had plenty of every other kind of frozen vegetable. "Is it because of this post?" I wondered. Luckily the Safeway had some broccoli.

As usual, you can use frozen, jarred, and bottled versions of the ingredients to save time and manual labor. In that case, the only chopping you'll need to do is for the olives, which takes practically no time. Note that you can buy dried lemon peel in the spice section of many stores, so you can use that as a substitute for lemon zest.

I think you're really going to like this dish, even if you're normally not a big broccoli fan. The roasting imparts a very pleasing, rich yet not overpowering blend of flavors. And the red against the green is dazzling.


Broccoli in General Goes Great With...
...Tomatoes, mushrooms, roasted garlic (which you can now buy in a jar), carrots, zucchini, red bell pepper, and its fraternal twin, cauliflower. Also try it with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and a touch of sesame oil; slivered almonds; apple cider vinegar; mustard seed or mustard powder; or a teeny bit of crushed red pepper. My boss's favorite way to cook broccoli is to mix olive oil, lemon juice, and Earth Balance in a skillet, and stir-fry the broccoli in that.


Summary
Broccoli is a giant among vegetables. Though sometimes vilified, it is no wonder that it is one of the nation's most popular vegetables. It contains a rainbow of nutrients. Plus fiber. It is low-fat. It has multiple cancer-fighting compounds. It stands on its own and fits in well with with a wide variety of dishes and cuisines. Because of its popularity, there are a multitude of recipes and cooking tips for broccoli online and in books, and many of them are super-simple and wonderfully tasty. As the caption said, partake and enjoy.

Labels: broccoli, cooking, diet, vegetables