In Season Right Now: Broccoli
Eleven delicious, nutritious recipes showcasing the best of our favourite brassica, broccoli.
Hello!
We hope you are all keeping well and eating well. We are excited to dedicate this newsletter to one of our best-loved brassicas — broccoli!
Brassica is a genus of plants in the cabbage and mustard family — and includes cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, kale, kohlrabi, and collards, to name a few. Of all the vegetables, brassicas are especially good for you, loaded with phytochemicals (shown to have cancer-preventive and anti-inflammatory properties).
Broccoli is such a fab vegetable — high in fibre and loaded with antioxidants (including sulforaphane, a plant compound that may lower your risk of chronic health conditions), as well as vitamins A, C, K, and calcium — there are many reasons why you should be eating as much broccoli as you can.
It’s also highly versatile and excellent in pasta, stir-fries, curries, salads, fritters, on the barbecue, roasted as steaks, and even eaten raw.
Fun fact — adding a little mustard to cooked broccoli can increase its content of potentially protective chemicals x 10. It’s such a simple thing to do — add a few mustard seeds to a stir fry, or some Dijon or seed mustard into a dressing or sauce that is going with any kind of brassica dish or salad (but especially broccoli) and just like that, you have boosted your protective nutrition!
With well-priced broccoli on the shelves in NZ right now, we wanted to take the opportunity to share some of our favourite broccoli recipes, for all seasons.
Growing up, carbonara was on weekly rotation in our household. Rose doesn’t like vegetarian meals that feel like they are missing something — so in this recipe for Mushroom & Broccoli Carbonara we use garlicky mushrooms in place of the traditional pancetta/bacon. If you don’t love mushrooms as much as we do, you can leave them out. And of course, you can add some crispy fried pancetta or bacon too.
Italians may balk at the inclusion of egg whites — we don’t want to miss out on valuable protein or waste precious egg whites! The broccoli florets soak up the flavours of the egg and parmesan sauce wonderfully. We like to quickly blanch the broccoli so it still has a nice bit of crunch (we are not fans of over-cooked broccoli) but if this is too al dente for your liking, you can cook it a little longer. This recipe is also great with asparagus when it’s in season.
A warming Crispy-Topped Mac & Cheese is such an easy, cozy dinner. We love making this with half broccoli and half cauliflower for a veggie-packed variation on a family favourite. To make it a little lighter, you can skip the pasta entirely. It’s also the stuff of leisurely Sunday lunches, especially when partnered with a tangy green salad and a chilled bottle of white wine.
Our Raw Broccoli Salad from our very first joint publication, Together is so fresh and flavourful. It provides a welcome break from hearty winter meals (and is particularly good when served with a roast chicken). For those reading this from warmer climates, it’s also wonderfully refreshing as-is.
Another household favourite is this Summer Pasta with Zucchini & Broccoli, especially in the warmer months. Creamy ricotta pairs beautifully with garlic, chilli, lemon, and lots of fab vegetables. You can add 4 strips of crispy bacon or pancetta and/or use finely chopped rosemary instead of chilli flakes.
This Grilled Broccoli Salad is our favourite cafe-style broccoli salad. You can prep it ahead of time and dress just before you serve. Peeling the broccoli stalks makes them nice and tender.
Baked broccoli bites are often made with a cheesy flavour but we thought it would be fun to make an Asian version. These Asian Broccoli Bites are much lighter and just as tasty.
These beautiful Chargrilled Greens with Feta & Freekeh taste just as good as they look. We love to serve this with grilled lamb chops, steak, or roasted pumpkin wedges. For a gluten-free version use quinoa in place of freekah or farro. When it’s not asparagus season use green beans instead, and if you can’t get broccolini use broccoli florets.
Lastly, a quick and easy Japanese Broccoli Salad. This yummy dish is inspired by one served at Ken Yakitori Bar on Anzac Ave in Auckland, as their take on goma-ae. We would come to Ken most Friday nights as a family, and sit up at the bar, ordering almost everything on the menu, racing to finish the edamame. Ted and Rose would often eat a whole head of broccoli each, it’s addictively delicious. Whenever we are back in Auckland, we try to go back — the menu and music haven’t changed since it opened in the late 90s, and it’s still fantastic.
What to Cook Tonight
For our paid subscribers, you may wish to revisit this lip-smacking Orecchiette with Broccoli & Sausage — this classic southern Italian pasta has so much flavour and is wonderfully moreish. This is a great way to make a little bit of meat go a long way — as the southern Italians are so well versed in.
We’ve also been loving our Pasta with Broccoli Pesto & Anchovy Pangrattato. Nutty, cheesy, and packed with beans and greens, this tasty recipe really hits the spot. To make this lighter (and higher in fibre) use more beans and less pasta.
We’ve been cooking with beans a lot recently (packed with fibre and protein, adding legumes to your diet is a great way to keep your tummy happy, and help with weight management). This Charred Broccoli with Creamy Beans & Green Olive Salsa Verde is so hearty and satisfying, we love it as a vegetarian main or accompanied by some chicken or steak.
Reading Recommendations
It’s been a while since we gave any reading recommendations, and we have both read and loved some incredible books lately!
Rose (like many) just finished The Bee Sting by Paul Murray — an epic family novel, it’s wonderfully woven and layered, and deeply dysfunctional. She also loved Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, a beautiful love story set in South East London that is deeply poignant and refreshingly raw.
Rose also recommends Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (of Japanese Breakfast fame). A memoir about growing up Korean American and the loss of her mother, it is heartbreaking and will leave you in tears — proceed with caution! The New Yorker also featured the text if you’d like a little preview.
From Annabel — “l have on a run of fabulous Irish books, in particular, there were two books I didn’t want to finish, they were both so compelling.”
Long Island by Colm Tóibín — In the opening pages of “Long Island,” fate deals Eilis a young Irish woman with an Italian husband and two teenage children, a wild card. Or rather, her husband Tony does. A stranger shows up at Eilis’s door to inform her that his wife is pregnant and that Tony, who had done some repairs for the family, is the father. The story follows what happens next. It’s not a “who dunnit” kind of book but more an exploration of human nature and the nature of migration, marriage, motherhood, and expectation.
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy — Set in 1975 in the midst of the Troubles, this masterly, page-turning novel about a young Catholic woman who comes from a pub-owning family and a married older Protestant barrister captures so many emotions around love, lust, and the nature of conflict — both personal and cultural.
If you haven’t already discovered Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, it is a small book that is so beautifully written you want to stop and savour every sentence.
I also read The Bee Sting, and I loved the characters (especially Imelda), however towards the end, the galloping crazy madness that overtook the book left me feeling very dissatisfied — anyone else feel the same?
That’s everything from us! We hope these recipes give you ample inspiration for the bounty of broccoli. Do let us know if you have any feedback, thoughts, or ideas — we always love to hear from you. You can comment below or find us at hello@langbein.com.
With love,
Annabel & Rose xxx
Cant wait to try those broccoli recipes as we have it ready to.pick in our garden....one of our fave vegetables so always looking for new ways to serve it. Really enjoying your newsletters and updates.
Christine Griffith