Ronnie's Notes
Cooking 101 Plus Stir-fried broccoli
Broccoli is the workhorse of vegetables. Hearty in winter, light in summer and amazingly versatile. Use it as a side dish or plunk it into soup. Drizzle it with vinaigrette to make a salad. Mix it into a savory custard or pie. Partner it with pasta, and so on.
Add to that a kind of glamour -- the little green florets are gorgeous enough to garnish plates in the best restaurants. Broccoli is inexpensive too, making it accessible for everyone’s budget. And it’s good for you: studies have shown that a compound in the vegetable might have anti-tumor effects.
Small wonder then that broccoli, a relative unknown until the 1970s, has become an American culinary staple. We should thank the Chinese, who redefined cookery for Americans during those years when they advised us not to boil vegetables to death. We’ve been cooking them to just-tenderness ever since.
Chinese cooks have special ways with broccoli. They know how to make the most of the entire stalk, including the fibrous stem, so nothing is wasted. Here’s their trick: peel the stem’s thick, outer skin using a vegetable peeler or a sharp paring knife. The stem becomes tender and crisp and offers a vaguely sweet counterpart to the more powerful florets.
It can be tricky to prepare broccoli. If you don’t cook it enough, it’s too hard and it’s difficult to chew. If you overcook it, it becomes soggy and the color of World War II army uniforms. Worse yet, it smells bad. One of the simplest ways to get broccoli right is to stir-fry. In this month’s Cooking 101 Plus, we’ll tell you how to do just that, and then suggest ways to use stir-fried broccoli both as a side dish and to incorporate it into other recipes.
Begin with fresh, crisp-looking broccoli. You can buy heads-only, but the stems are tender and tasty, so it’s smart to include them. It’s cheaper that way too. Remove the florets from the stem and cut them into bite size pieces. Take off about an inch from the bottom of the stem and peel the outer skin back toward the top (use a paring knife or vegetable peeler), then cut the stems into bite-sized chunks. Keep the pieces the same size so that they cook evenly. Wash and drain the pieces and set them aside.
While you can use any type of skillet to stir-fry, the handiest is a wok, stir-fry pan or fait-tout. Their rounded sides help radiate heat quickly and evenly up the sides of the pan so food cooks more evenly. They also prevent the ingredients from being tossed out of the pan.
Preheat the pan so that the broccoli starts to cook as soon as it hits the metal. Use-medium-high heat to cook the pieces quickly. You need only a small amount of vegetable oil; after pouring it in, swirl the pan around to coat the sides. Once you add the broccoli, keep the pieces moving in the pan using a rigid spatula.
Because broccoli is hard, you will have to steam the pieces in the pan for a couple of minutes. After the initial stir-frying, add some liquid – water, stock, juice, depending on how you will be serving the vegetable – and cover the pan briefly.
Our master recipe for stir-fried broccoli calls for salt and water only, and makes a simple side dish to grace any meal. But there are endless variations on that theme and we’ve offered a few suggestions: seasoning with garlic, scallions and/or red pepper. You might add soy sauce or fresh herbs such as thyme or savory. Consider mixing broccoli florets with pieces of cauliflower. Toss in some sesame seeds. Add mushrooms. Make a glaze by adding a small amount of cornstarch to the liquid left in the pan. Our second recipe calls for dried red chili peppers, fresh ginger, orange juice and sesame oil. The peppers give the dish some heat, but the fire is tempered by the sweet juice.
Stir-frying is quick, so it’s important to prepare all the ingredients, including any cornstarch mixtures, beforehand. Keep them separate on a plate or in little bowls. You don’t want to be mincing parsley while you’re cooking. When you make an elaborate dish such as our Stir-fried xe "recipes:Broccoli with Garlic and Lemon"xe "Broccoli with Garlic and Lemon:recipe"Broccoli with Sausage, Tomatoes, Pasta and Pignoli Nuts, prepare the other ingredients first and have them at the ready. With stir-fried broccoli, the work is all in the preparations. Cooking time is minimal, so you can enjoy the dish right away.
Instructions
After stir-frying the broccoli for uncovered and covered, dish out the broccoli, drain the liquid but reserve it, and set the broccoli aside.
Return the pan to the heat.
Add the remaining vegetable oil.
Add the garlic, scallions ginger, chili peppers and grated orange rind and stir-fry for .
Return the juice to the pan and cook to evaporate most of the liquid.
Return the broccoli to the pan and stir-fry until the broccoli is tender and heated through.
Add sesame oil, stir-fry to blend it in and serve.
Makes 4 servings Stir-fried xe "recipes:Broccoli with Garlic and Lemon"xe "Broccoli with Garlic and Lemon:recipe"Broccoli with Sausage, Tomatoes, Pasta and Pignoli Nuts 2 cups bow shaped pasta pasta 1 recipe stir-fried broccoli made with water 1/3 cup pignoli nuts 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes 1 lb.
grilled Italian style sausages, cut up 1/3 cup olive oil salt and pepper to taste Cook the pasta until it is al dente; then drain it and set it aside.
Prepare the broccoli as in the master recipe.
After stir-frying the broccoli for uncovered and covered, dish out the broccoli, drain the liquid but reserve it, and set the broccoli aside.
Return the pan to the heat.
Add the remaining vegetable oil.
Add the pignoli nuts and cook them, stirring occasionally, for or until the nuts are lightly toasted.
Add the garlic, tomatoes and sausage and cook for .
Add the pasta to the pan and stir-fry to distribute ingredients evenly.
Add the olive oil and the reserved water.
Cook another minute or so or until ingredients are hot.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Makes 4 servings