Long-Cooked Broccoli
Long-cooked broccoli comes to us from Paul Bertolli’s Chez Panisse Cooking. I cooked it for years, forgot about it, then recalled it when I began making Paula Wolfert’s green beans with tomato, another recipe calling for long cooking.
“Long-cooked” isn’t a euphemism for pap. Prepared with attention and care, long-cooked broccoli is soft and giving. That doesn’t mean it’s tasteless mush. Instead, broccoli cooked by this method takes on a silken tenderness, a texture rarely associated with this brassica. A generous amount of garlic adds sweetness, which is countered by fresh lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
The final dish is khaki-colored. You can’t have everything in this life. Besides, you’re going to eat it, not frame it.
Long-cooked broccoli is vegetarian, gluten-free, and vegan, making it a versatile dish. It makes a nice side dish (a consideration, given the time of year), or may be served over pasta, polenta, or rice. Long-cooked broccoli also delicious by itself, with crusty bread, butter, and a sharp cheese like Cheddar.
Totally unrelated to the topic at hand.
Happily, long-cooked broccoli only improves with time, keeping up to five days in the refrigerator.
Long-Cooked Broccoli
With minimal adaption from
Chez Panisse Cooking by Paul Bertolli, with Alice Waters
Prep time: about ten minutes
Cooking time: about 90 minutes, largely unattended
Note: this dish may be prepared in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot. I have neither. Please follow appliance directions.
Yield: 1.5 pounds/one half kilo fed two people 4 times as a side dish. Easily scaled upward.
Please read notes, below, before cooking.
4 ounces/120 ml olive oil
10 cloves garlic
1 bunch broccoli
Juice of two large lemons (Meyer if you can get them)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
pinch red pepper flakes
2 1/2 cups/600ml water (you may need a bit more)
You will need a deep, lidded saucepan to make long-cooked broccoli. Bertolli calls for 10-inch/25 cm pot. I used an 8-inch/8-liter pot.
Trim the broccoli and peel the stalks.
Peel the garlic and slice it thinly.
Warm the olive oil in the pan over medium low heat.
Add all the ingredients. Pour water over and stir everything. The broccoli should be barely covered.
Bring to a boil, then turn heat down to low simmer. Cover.
Cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. You should not need to add water.
Once the hour is up, remove the lid. Crank heat up to reduce liquid. I like to have some liquid left, but the original recipe instructs you to boil all of it off. Note the liquid is delicious and may be strained off and used as a soup base. So how much to reduce is up to you.
Either way, as the liquid boils, stir and crush the broccoli with a large spoon. Allow it to cool before serving. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
Long-cooked broccoli is delicious as a side dish, atop pasta, rice, or polenta. It is also good on its own with bread, salad, and cheese.
Long-cooked broccoli keeps, refrigerated in a covered container, up to five days. Freezing the broccoli not recommended, but the cooking liquid may be frozen up to four months.
Notes:
Broccoli is sold bunched in the US in approximately 1-1.5 pound/ half kilo bunches. We can also buy loose crowns, but you want the stalks for this dish.
Don’t let the amount of garlic alarm you. It loses all harshness in cooking. Feel free to adjust amounts to your taste.
Cabbage may also be prepared this way. Other broccoli/cauliflower crosses would also work well.
It is with great sadness that I note the passing of writer Peter Schjeldahl. For many years I worked in the Art History Department of a large, well-known University. Some of the people I worked for, and with, were quite pleasant. Others were much less so.
Academia is a place that rewards inscrutable, pretentious writing. This is especially true of the Humanities. Schjeldahl’s cogently written reviews are a joy to read because he loved art and wanted to share his love with the world. Such generousity of spirit is vanishingly rare.
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