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Broccoli
Appears in
By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington
Published 1998
Broccoli means ‘tiny shoots’ in Italian. The purple flowering type used to be the most common, with its dark-coloured clusters of tight-packed florets, but calabrese – a green variant with fewer leaves – is now also widely available and has rather taken over.
However you intend to finish broccoli, cooking invariably begins with brief blanching in rapidly boiling salted water. It may then be refreshed in cold water and held before being stir-fried in olive oil with chilli and garlic for a pasta sauce or roasted, as for example when used to stuff pasta shells (conchiglie) with anchovies and garlic, flavours which go particularly well with the vegetable.