My boyfriend has never liked broccoli. I don’t mind it, but I find it quite bland when it’s boiled or steamed, so it’s rare that I would choose to buy it and cook it just for the two of us.
A few months ago I came across a broccoli recipe which intrigued me, as it claimed to be able to convert the most avid broccoli-haters, and I saved it in my ‘must try this recipe’ file and virtually forgot about it until this week.
Today I picked up the ingredients and made the dish for our supper, and was I shocked and delighted to receive compliments from Iestyn, who has just consumed (and really, really enjoyed) more broccoli than has passed his lips in the whole of the last 30 years.
The instructions I followed are here on the Amateur Gourmet site, which in turn came from a book by Barefoot Contessa’s Ina Garten, but I found the simplicity of this recipe was somewhat lost amongst everything else in Adam’s post, so here I’ll give a breakdown on what has just emerged from my kitchen. I served this with potato wedges, which were just Charlottes sliced lengthways, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli powder, oven-cooked at the same time and temperature as the broccoli.
Ingredients
1 large head of broccoli
Olive oil
4 garlic cloves
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1 lemon
Parmesan cheese, a piece the size of a matchbox
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Cut the broccoli into florets. Wash it if you prefer, and dry thoroughly (I used organic broccoli and chose not wash it). Tip into a large baking dish.
Peel and thinly slice the garlic, and add to the broccoli. Add salt and pepper (I was quite liberal with both), and a few tablespoons of olive oil. Mix well - add a tiny bit more oil if the broccoli isn’t well-coated.
Oven-cook for 25-30 minutes. The broccoli should become tender and a little browned at the edges.
While the broccoli is cooking, finely grate the Parmesan and zest the lemon. Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until they’re golden brown.
Remove the broccoli from the oven and add the pine nuts, cheese and lemon zest to the pan. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze a little juice over the broccoli (I used the whole lemon and found it was a little sharp - half the lemon should suffice). Mix well and serve.