Those of you who know me, know I adore broccoli.
Those of you who don’t know me yet will soon learn…
I REALLY love broccoli……. once when I left a temping assignment, they bought me presents… chocolate and wine, a lovely card…. and a head of broccoli! OK, so that was a joke but it reflected the fact that there were so many packed lunches of mine that involved broccoli.
I thought I had broccoli cracked… I’d make soup, or steamed with chilli, or Thai green curry, or eat it raw, broccoli puree, broccoli with lemon, broccoli hot.. broccoli cold…. anything really. I love broccoli. I thought I had worked my way through the entire broccoli cookbook.
And then I read The Weekend Carnivore and Sarah Jayne wrote about Broccoli Slaw…. she added apricots, which I would never do, but even so.. broccoli? Something new to do with broccoli? Oh I was happy!
I often make coleslaw and we love it but this was different… using the broccoli stem instead of cabbage.
Simple enough… just slice the broccoli stem into slices across and then across again and again until you have pieces the size of matchsticks.
… and grate the carrot
When you make cole slaw, you really have to add onion but I really don’t like lots of it. If I eat big bits of raw onion I get a headache… weird, eh? So what I have done to get round that is to use a microplane grater and grate some raw onion so it comes out rather like a puree….
and what I do then is add it to some mayonnaise to give the taste of onion without too much harshness.
I love making my own mayonnaise because I can tweak it according to what I intend to eat it with… lemon, perhaps, or chilli. This time I just wanted plain mayonnaise so the clean crisp flavours of the carrots and broccoli could shine through.
Stir in all that lovely, sweet, grated carrot
Then add the broccoli and a sprinkling of lovely Maldon Salt and stir it round…..
This is gorgeous. Really gorgeous.
And when fed to Bears? Bears who swear they won’t eat broccoli? Well………. it was eaten. And enjoyed!
To think that some people throw the stem out….
I am glad you enjoyed the concept. It is so much better than throwing away those stems which is what most people do. It is really popular in the States now to the point where you can buy it pre-shredded in a bag. I wouldn’t hate it if that trend came over here.
This is still on my list, everytime I’ve had broccoli since I saw that recipe, I’ve thought about it. But just didn’t have time or an approrpriate meal to eat the slaw with. Maybe this weekend will the the one!