Getting your greens down

Broccoli is effectively nothing but glorified cauliflower, but when you have tried to grow some of your own and failed, a successful harvest is nothing short of green gold. My broccoli this year was a resounding success. There was quite a lot of it. Some got distributed to friends and family, some got pureed and put in the freezer for soups, some got cooked and some got boiled until kingdom come and murdered! I have learnt that I have to get the broccoli in me or in the freezer as soon as I can as the stuff doesn't keep well at all in the Indian weather.

One of the lots

I got back from work the other day and thought this one up in the shower. I remember ordering a bowl of chili broccoli at a restaurant in London - I can't remember which one though - and getting a disappointing bowl of what seemed like Blue Dragon Sweet Chili Sauce drenched greens. So here's my attempt at doing my hard earned veg some justice.

I broke up one broccoli into flowerettes and sliced up the stems. I keep all of the stems. Its all good.

Chop up some garlic like you are French, some dried red chillies, and some lemon rind. Finely chop the lemon rind. Don't go by the picture otherwise you'll be brushing your tongue for a week.

In some extra virgin olive oil fry off the chillies and lemon rind followed by the garlic. Throw in the part steamed broccoli. I steam mine for only about 2 minutes. There's absolutely no point if you are going to cook the living daylights out of the damn thing till it turns a sickly fungus green.

Toss the broccoli around in the pan and trickle on a spoonful of honey. The honey gave it a nice glaze of sweetness and balanced the deep heat of the dried chillies quite well.

And there you have it. A bowl of Sweet Chili Broccoli that will be remembered for all the right reasons.

Watch this space to see what becomes of my Gujarat record breaking turnip.