Broccoli with Sweet Preserved Kumquats

When I was at a local pea patch last weekend, I spotted a neighboring crop of broccoli that was starting to head and couldn’t resist cutting a few. Just-picked spring broccoli is a far cry from what you get in the supermarket or even from the farm in fall. Tender and sweet, it cooks in no time plunged into a large pot of boiling water.  Served simply with a little olive oil and salt or tossed into pasta, spring broccoli is a real treat.  Instead of using olive oil, I dressed the broccoli in a little kumquat liquid and garnished it with the preserved kumquats that have become an obsession of mine since the winter.

 I usually preserve lemons Moroccan-style when beautiful un-waxed organic fruit comes into the market, and dip into the jar all year long. This year, I also made lime pickle and preserved kumquats. The kumquats, unlike the unadorned lemons, contained sugar and spices in addition to salt, not to mention, a lot less salt. This is a liberal variation on an Indian recipe, posted by Tigress of Can Jam fame. Genius.  I made several batches of these kumquats – with the spices that Tigress used (fennel seed, cumin and black pepper) and with other traditional spices (coriander, cumin and cinnamon). I use the kumquat “juice” instead of oil and vinegar on salads and chopped preserved kumquats as accent, much as you would a pungent olive.  

Sweet Preserved Kumquats, thanks to Tigress in a Pickle

12 oz organic kumquats

Juice of 2 lemons

1 tbsp salt

½ c natural brown sugar such as demerara or turbinado

Spice mix

Alternative 1: 1 tsp fennel seed, 1 tsp crushed black pepper, ½ tsp cumin seed

Alternative 2:  1 tsp coriander seed, 1 tsp crushed black pepper, ½ tsp cumin seed, 1 3-4-inch cinnamon stick

Clean and thoroughly dry the kumquats, for a couple of hours at least. Slit each kumquat pole to pole but do not detach. Combine all of the ingredients in a jar. Seal and put it in a warm, sunny place (windowsill).  Shake the jar daily to re-combine the ingredients. The kumquats will gradually ooze their liquid. After about 3 weeks, the kumquats will be tender to the fork, at which time they should be refrigerated.  Use in a few months’ time.

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Pickled Broccoli Stems

The stems of broccoli are as great as the florets but because of their different consistencies, some people don’t see how to use them together unless the head is cut lengthwise into slim slices so that the tops and bottoms cook at the same rate. I often cook the tops and stems separately and then combine them, as in broccoli salad, or broccoli pesto on pasta. Having come back from our CSA farm last week with 12 heads of broccoli – yikes – but having a bunch of family folk here over the weekend, we had a kind of broccoli-fest. Not overtly a fest but a large batch of soup (separate post) and pickles and a large “salad.”

Pickled broccoli stems have been all over the net for a year, in my world seen mostly in The New York Times. I experimented with two ways of making these fresh pickles, which are ready to eat in a matter of hours.  In both batches, I trimmed the thick outer skin, and cut the stalks into matchsticks of about ¼ inch or less square by 1½ inches long.

I salted one batch (Martha Rose Schulman, NYT) and let it sit for a couple of hours to draw out the excess moisture, then dressed it with a vinaigrette of sherry wine vinegar, olive oil and minced garlic, letting it sit for another half hour or more before serving. It would definitely last longer but not in our house.

For the other batch (Molly O’Neill, NYT), I blanched the broccoli matchsticks in salted boiling water for a minute. Then I combined them with rice vinegar, crushed coriander seed, cumin seed, and pink peppercorns (newly re-discovered) or red pepper flakes, (she used a red chili), minced garlic and salt.

They were different but both great.

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Curried Broccoli Soup

This soup is similar to the curried asparagus soup that I posted a while ago but includes potato to create a creamy texture without using dairy.  Although I sometimes make a soup like this with chicken broth, I respected the vegetarians among us and made it with water. I didn’t think ahead enough to make vegetable broth. The addition of highly flavored onions provided the spunk that made this potage really delicious. At the end, I added freshly cooked broccoli florets and the little beads that make up the florets to spark things up.  There’s no strict requirement here so you have to tune it as you go.

Curried Broccoli Soup

3-4 heads broccoli

2 medium onions, sliced in half crosswise and then lengthwise, making moon-shaped slices

1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil

2 tsp hot curry powder (or regular curry powder and ½ tsp cayenne powder)

2 medium white or yellow potatoes, peeled and cubed

Water or vegetable broth

Salt

Prepare the broccoli. Separate the stalks from the florets, reserving the little beads that fall off of the florets and a few florets to parboil for garnish. Peel the stems and chop them into ¾-inch pieces.

Heat the oil in a large pot and add the onions, cooking over medium low heat until translucent. Add the curry powder to combine, cooking for a few minutes. Reserve a few onions for a later garnish, adding a little cayenne to them. Add the broccoli stems and potatoes to the pot and stir to coat with the curry mixture. Add water or broth (start with a relatively small amount and add more if needed, bring to a boil and then simmer until the broccoli stems are crisp-tender. Add the broccoli florets (except for those set aside for garnish) and continue to cook until the vegetables are soft.

Puree in a food processor and season to taste. Parboil the served broccoli florets and serve them as garnish along with the broccoli beads and the reserved onions.

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Pasta with Broccoli Pesto and Roasted Tomatoes

During the still-cold days in the transition from winter to spring, there is still a yen for warm, tasty comfort food coupled with a push toward fresh vegetables, which for us are not yet local. This dish is another example of my philosophy of walking in the door after work, setting a pot of water on to boil and lighting the oven, before doing anything else.

Here I parboiled the broccoli, cooled it and pureed much of it in the food processor with garlic and anchovies that had been melted together with some olive oil, making a flavorful pesto. (You can add pine nuts or walnuts if you have some.) I cooked the pasta in the same pot of water.

Meanwhile, I tossed cherry tomatoes with herbs, olive oil, and a few large breadcrumbs (not necessary but nice if they get crispy). There was enough complexity to make this very flavorful and the higher proportion of vegetables to pasta made it feel lighter than other pasta dishes.

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Broccoli “Salad” with Preserved Lemons

During the winter, green (meaning lettuce-variety) salads do not always appeal, unless they’re made with bitter greens like escarole, radicchio, Belgian endive, curly endive, frisee or others. Those are my favorites, since the taste and texture are invigorating, individually or in combination. The greens can be tossed with oranges and red onion to offset the ruggedness of the bite, garnished with flavorful cheese, or dressed with an assertive vinaigrette, fortified with sherry vinegar, mustard or other sharp flavors. I personally tend not to tame them with sweetness, but that’s also fine.

A winter alternative is a green “salad” made of cooked vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower, which tend to show well in the market at this time of year. Here, I made a room-temperature salad composed of blanched broccoli, lightly sautéed red onions and red peppers, which was dressed only with a drizzle of juice from a jar of preserved lemons. Wow, a photo can never convey the punch of those tangy lemons. The vegetables absorbed the saltiness and the unexpected burst of flavor was amazing, better than capers or olives. You could shovel a lot of snow after eating that.

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