After being unable to make it to the garden for a while, I was overjoyed to find a blanket of these smaller stems of sprouting broccoli, which are masses of tight flower buds. Buds that, left unharvested, will open into nectar-heavy, yellow flowers, which the bees and butterflies love.
If you catch them before the buds burst into an explosion of yellow, the shoots are at their most sweet and tender.
Broccoli is a tough garden plant and will survive the hardest frost. This is what we have had here in Sintra this last week: waking up to a carpet of icicles covering the lawn. My garden is a little hidden and deeper down, so it manages to be protected from most of nature’s elements. Snails, however, devoured every leaf of last year’s crop, but the broccoli survived, and here they are now, gifting our family with their delicate presence.
I also use the smaller leaves just below the bud as I would kale or spinach.
broccoli palya
serves 4, as a side dish.
This is a speedy, bright-tasting dish. Be careful when stir-frying the broccoli, as the tight flower buds tend to burn before the stems are tender. Splash water over the top and saute them on low heat. This is a side dish to any dal or kichadi. I try to keep the broccoli true to itself and add very minimal seasonings. An Asian dish, like this one from Donna’s, would also work well.
ingredients
4 cups garden-picked thin broccoli buds with stems and leaves, no need to chop (or two medium store-bought broccoli – thicker stems removed and roughly chopped)
1 Tbsp peanut oil
½ tsp black mustard seeds
½ tsp jaggery/ brown sugar
1 Tbsp dried coconut
salt to taste
preparation
- In a skillet, heat the oil. When hot, add the mustard seeds. When they splatter and pop, turn down the heat and add the broccoli.
- Sprinkle over some water and move them around a bit. Place the lid on for 1 minute, remove it, stir, replace the lid, and steam for another minute.
- Add the jaggery, salt and coconut.
- Remove from heat so the stems are al dente and still have some crunch. Serve and eat immediately with dal of choice or kichadi.
Goodness shared from Stacey
