Broccoli has leaves you can eat!

It's funny how we eat the leaves of many brassica (mustard) plants - couve, cavolo nero, bok choy etc etc - and consider them finished once they start to flower. With broccoli, on the other hand, we wait for it to start flowering and eat that flowering head. What about all those leaves? A friend of ours said recently that broccoli leaves are his favourite of all the brassica leaves. "no way!" I thought.

I gave it a try last week and, sure enough, they're delicious! Notably, they hold their volume (don't shrink as much) and texture better than most other greens I've tried. 

I chopped them up and cooked them in a pan with a little stock and the lid on. Delicious! 

I would recommend trying this:

Chop the broccoli leaves and stems and add to a hot pan with olive oil. Toss for a minute, add some salt and little water (or stock), cover and cook on a low to medium heat. Once they're tender (check every couple of minutes) squeeze over some lemon juice and serve.

I think they could also be used in soups and stews. I'll be doing more research over winter. Maybe on cauliflower leaves too!

Daikon radish

We love growing daikon radishes. Not only are they great for eating, they are also really good for the soil and can be pulled without disrupting the structure of the soil. 

Here are a few suggestions to try out if you’re not that familiar with them:

Try cubing it up and put into a kimchi ramen noodle soup or in a coconut dhal. It’s really delicious cooked in liquid like this. It loses some of its pepperiness and has a very delicate texture and flavour.

It is often eaten as a pickle and keeps its crunch really nicely. There are many simple recipes such as this carrot and daikon pickle.

https://www.recipetineats.com/vietnamese-pickled-carrots-daikon/

And here is my mum's Chinese friend's recipe for radish cake.

1kg of Daikon, grated and squeezed out

1/2 cup dried shrimp, soaked, drained and diced (optional)

1/2 cup spring onions, sliced.

Add the daikon to 600ml water with 2tsp salt, 2tsp soy, 2tsp sugar, 2tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp white pepper. Bring to boil, simmer for 5 minutes then take off the heat and add a slurry made from 600ml water, 400g fine white rice flour, 2 tbsp cornstarch. add the shrimp and spring onion and mix well.

Pour into a greased loaf tin and steam for approx. 1 hour.

You can eat it like this or, better,  sliced and pan-fried until crispy, Yum Cha-style.

Escarole (or frisée) and mushroom salad

Here’s another recipe suggestion from Karina and Aaron in case you need some inspiration for what to do with escarole. 

And if you’ve got a favourite recipe that you’d like to share please send it through :)

https://www.triedandtruerecipe.com/warm-frisee-and-mushroom-salad/

Cavolo Nero Tradizionale

Back in 2014 we did a cycle trip in Italy. When we were in Tuscany we rented a place in a little village called Vagli Di Sotto for a few days. There were a few cook books written in English and I took some pictures of the ones that I thought sounded good. They then got lost in my myriad of photos but I went back to find them the other day, remembering that there were a couple of interesting recipes for Cavolo Nero. So here they are, and I’m going to finally go and try out ‘superb’ kale on toast.

And this is the same dish but quite different. I particularly like the ratio of kale to bread in the ingredients.

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pasta with cime di rapa

This is one of my (Stan's) favourite vegetables. Cime di rapa (meaning head of rape (mustard)) is a quick-growing, leafy mustard green popular in Italy. It's great just wilted in a pan with some olive oil, garlic salt and lemon. However, the classic recipe from Apulia is worth a try. You could go to the trouble of making orecchiete. I struggle to shape it as well as this granny:

shaping orechiette

so, I usually make cavatelli which is more straightforward:

shaping cavatelli

The pasta dough I make is with semola di grana duro rimacinata (extra-fine milled pasta semolina). I do 47% hydration (i.e. for 100g of flour add 47g water) . For Briony and me, I make 350g flour + 165g water  = 515g pasta (no salt - save that for the cooking water). That's quite a lot of pasta. That would be enough for 3-4 sedentary adults. You can use bought, dried orechiette instead, if you're feeling sedentary...

This recipe for orechiette with cime di rapa is pretty good. I make my breadcrumbs in a large mortar and pestle (uneven crumbs are the best!). Also, I use all of the cime not omitting the stems as this recipe does. I also use fresh red chile rather than flakes.

Cavolo Nero risotto with lemon and garlic

This recipe has been suggested by fellow veg box subscribers Karina and Aaron. They say it’s a real hit in their family. It comes from an Instagram post by @juliusroberts and if you scan this QR code it should take you to that post.

Or you can read below……

Serves 4-5.

1 Diced white onion 

500g Cavolo Nero 

400g Risotto rice 

A glass of dry white wine, sherry or vermouth 

1.5 litres of quality chicken or veg stock (well-seasoned and warm) 1 fresh bay leaf 

2-3 cloves of garlic 

1 large unwaxed lemon 

70g parmesan 

90g butter 

120g Olive oil

Melt 45g of the butter in a heavy based saucepan with 45ml of olive oil. Add the onion, season with salt and fry until sweet and tender being careful it doesn't burn. When the onion is cooked, add the risotto rice and toast the grains for 3 minutes stirring constantly, then add the wine and cook off the alcohol. Follow with the bay leaf and a ladleful of stock. When the stock has been absorbed by the rice add another ladle. Repeat, stirring often, until the rice is al dente (just cooked). 15-20 minutes.

While the risotto is bubbling, grate the garlic and lemon zest into a bowl then follow with the juice of half a lemon. Leave to sit for 10-15 minutes and allow the acidity to relax the intensity of the raw garlic. Then add rest of the olive oil and leave to infuse.

Next, strip the leaves from the Cavolo Nero stalks and cook in boiling salted water until just cooked. Drain and squeeze out the excess water. Then blitz in a food processor to a fine paste.

When the rice is ready stir in the Cavolo Nero paste and take your pan off the heat. Add the parmesan and remaining 45g butter, then whisk and beat the risotto with a wooden spoon. This emulsifies the butter and parmesan into the starchy stock, forming a silky sauce that envelopes the rice. Taste and adjust your seasoning if necessary. Serve piping hot with a generous drizzle of the lemon and garlic flavoured oil.

walnut sauce

 Here's a walnut sauce that I make to serve with steamed or grilled broccoli. You could use it to serve with all sorts of vegetables.

Put a generous handful of walnut kernels into a food processor with a couple of cloves of garlic, a chilli (optional) a few anchovies (optional), a tsp of salt and 1 tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice. Process until the walnuts are finely chopped (you might need to scrape the sides of bowl a few times). Then, with the machine running, very slowly stream in ice cold water until you get a thick emulsified, creamy sauce. Stop adding water when the sauce is the consistency of thick cream.