GREAT STEAMY GREEN
Before the broccoli is fully formed, great handsome leaves grow up in a protective circle all about the head. By the time it’s fully grown the leaves are vast and drooping, their raison d'être is finally met and its time to collapse with exhausted relief.
Standing fast to the grass along their bed, that most delicious steamy green air rising from the freshly watered soil, I was left gawping at the leaves feeling there was a touch of injustice here that needed some reassessment. The sole purpose of these leaves cannot have been just to protect the head they guardedly wrapped around. The leaves are strong and handsome, surely full of the very same goodness as the broccoli itself. Prompting me to again question any part of an edible plant that we deem to be, waste, gone to seed, in edible or only there to nurture the part we have decided is worthy of our plate.
I crave the grounding iron rich embrace of a great plate of steaming greens with the same vital intensity I used to crave chocolate as a teen. Olive oil spilling from every cranny, freckled with chilli flakes, black pepper and enough sea salt you can hear it crunch is just about perfection for me. In Florence where I lived for a year or so, my friend and I would go to the same restaurant every Sunday night to eat exclusively a huge plate of sautéed spinach leaves. Served with a bowl of freshly grated Parmesan, a demi carafe of every mans red wine and another carafe of olive oil to spill over - all and everything we could have desired. The yellow pond surrounding the spinach would gradually and worryingly ‘evaporate’ as we ate and needed regular top ups from the generously provided jug o oil.
This ritual was not played out exclusively to counter vast lunch time indulgence but also because its one of the most delicious plates of food out there. Extra specially delicious eaten with a darling friend in the evening light of a Florentine piazza, watching the world go by and readying for the new week to break.
Anyway, these leaves get a similar treatment day after day after day in our house. Steamed, sautéed in garlic laced olive oil, piled high on a plate to sit in the middle of our table, pulled by forks from every angle. As a dish of greens to share or the foundation for a whole meal, topped with a poached egg and herby alioli - eaten with melty roast chicken - piled on top of your soup with shovel of toasted seeds, these sweet creamy leaves should be celebrated in their own right.
If you are lucky enough to have a broccoli plant growing in your garden, I really can’t recommend this treatment enough:
Wash the leaves and put them into a saucepan with a cm of fiercely boiling water and the lid on top
After a couple of minutes remove the lid and turn the leaves over so they cook evenly and pop the lid back on
When the leaves are a little wilted and nearly cooked through, pull them out and into a colander to steam dry and cool enough to gently squeeze off any residual water
Pour away the water left in the pot and use it to slowly cook off a few finely grated garlic cloves in plenty of olive oil, a couple of anchovy fillets, salt, pepper and chilli flakes until all has disintegrated and integrated
Over the heat, toss the leaves in the olive oil for a couple of mins and you are all done.
We covered ours in a garlic/ginger spiked tahini dressing, we missed some toasted sesame seeds but you can always have it all.
