I always check the mailbox when I get home from work. It's not that I'm ever expecting anything really exciting. To be honest, I usually get bills. But then there are those wonderful evenings when I open my mailbox to find a new issue of Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Martha Stewart Living, or Everyday Food. Somehow seeing one of those brightly colored, food-porn-laden issues makes my whole night.
On this particular day, it was Food & Wine. I won't say the lavender-colored cover, which seems better suited for Easter, really caught my eye, but the little chicken brioche sandwiches with bacon did. I got inside my apartment, dropped my bag, flopped down in an armchair, and opened the magazine. I got as far as the table of contents before I brought the magazine over to the kitchen counter and began grabbing ingredients for the caramelized broccoli with garlic recipe. As luck would have it, my roommate and I had gone to Costco earlier that week, and we had a huge bag of broccoli in the fridge. I felt destined to make this recipe.
Along with the broccoli, the recipe calls for just a few simple ingredients that one is likely to have on hand: olive oil, lemon, and garlic (and red pepper flakes, but I left those out).
Ingredients
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 heads of broccoli (1 1/4 pounds total), stems peeled and heads halved lengthwise
1/2 cup water
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Directions
In a large, deep skillet,
heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the broccoli, cut side down, cover and cook over moderate heat until richly browned on the bottom, about 8 minutes. Add the water, cover and cook until the broccoli is just tender and the water has evaporated, about 7 minutes. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil along with the garlic and the crushed red pepper and cook uncovered until the garlic is golden brown, about 3 minutes. Season the broccoli with salt and black pepper, drizzle with the lemon juice and serve.
Then, to make a whole meal out of it, I boiled some pasta on the side and then added the cooked pasta to the pan to saute it up a little with the broccoli.
And to the leftovers the next day, I added tomatoes and sauteed those up as well when the broccoli and pasta was just about heated through.
This is a great recipe. It turns plain old broccoli into a tasty, flavorful dish. Don't forget the lemon juice! And I wouldn't hesitate to throw extra garlic in.
2 comments:
I will have to try this recipe. I usually just steam broccoli and add a little butter for taste, but it gets boring. I have a couple of questions. Out of all the food magazines you get which is your favorite? Your go to food mag? Which one uses ingredients that easily available and use cooking techniques that are not overly complicated or use special equipment that only a professional kitchen would have?
I guess out of the ones I get, Bon Appetit and Food & Wine are tied for favorite. I find Gourmet a little unapproachable... not in terms of the recipes... but in terms of the layout and the content. Food & Wine and Bon Appetit just seem to be geared to a younger, more fun audience.
But for recipes that have easily available ingredients and are aimed at the home cook, I'd go with Everyday Food. I recently started subscribing to it and love it. I'd go with that over Every Day with Rachael Ray any day. I find Ray's recipes to be simple but lacking in flavor, whereas Everyday Food offers approachable, interesting, and flavorful recipes.
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