Recipe: Broccoli with Toasted Walnuts
Italians are the best vegetable cooks I know, striking the perfect balance between the food’s innate goodness and enhancement. Sometimes all it takes is olive oil, a touch of garlic, and salt. They see vegetables as equals to meat and fish and often serve them as a separate course. I love that kind of respect. I’ve never met an Italian home cook who could possibly offer up a platter of undercooked steamed broccoli.
Even now, with America more and more obsessed with food, it’s weird how vegetables can be treated as an afterthought here. I find this most perplexing when I encounter it in Italian restaurants. Even in fancy Manhattan, vegetables can be completely unadorned and sent out as a inert lump on your plate. What is up with that?
Recently I ate at an Italian seafood restaurant near my home in the West Village. The place smelled of freshly shucked oysters, and the Falanghina I ordered was excellent. My entrée was a perfectly grilled, whole, quite expensive pompano, stuffed to overflowing with fresh rosemary and thyme. It was wonderful, but it shared the plate with very lightly steamed broccoli and string beans, both completely flavorless and tough. How about a little salt? Is that so difficult? Another recent time, at another place, I ordered a crisp and juicy pan-fried pork cutlet seasoned deftly with lemon and capers but served with a side of that dreaded boiled broccoli. Excuse me, waiter, can I get a little olive oil over here?
Anyone who is a regular reader of mine knows that I almost never diss restaurants. Having toiled in restaurant kitchens for years, I know how damned hard it is to keep quality high night after night. Line cooking was the hardest job I ever did. But I do have an issue with vegetable preparations at more than a few Italian places in Manhattan. I’m not going to name those two trattorias I just referred to, but I’ll tell you it took all my patience not to go running into the kitchen screaming, “Why? Why?” I recall the NYU cafeteria doing a better job with broccoli.
Have you experienced this? Don’t those chefs want their friends and families to eat more vegetables? Have they ever cooked with an Italian grandmother? Garlic, olive oil, hot pepper, white wine, lemon zest, pine nuts, olives, basil, oregano, anchovies, a thread of good vinegar, a pinch of salt. I mean really.
And here’s a Mediterranean diet update for you: A new analyses published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says a diet rich in olive oil and nuts helps cut the risk of atherosclerosis, a build up of plaque in the arteries. So eat your broccoli with toasted walnuts. Good and good for you.
Broccoli with Toasted Walnuts
(Serves 4 as a first course or a side)
1 large bunch broccoli
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 ¼-inch-thick slice pancetta, cut into small cubes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
A few big scrapings of nutmeg (about 1/8 teaspoon)
A splash of dry Marsala
A big handful of very fresh walnuts, lightly toasted and then roughly chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
The grated zest from a small lemon
Peel the stalks of the broccoli, and cut them into slices. Cut the heads into small florettes (you want to use everything except the tough end).
Set up a medium-size pot of water. Bring it to a boil, and add some salt. Add the broccoli, and blanch for about 2 minutes. Drain, and plunge the broccoli into an ice bath to stop the cooking and bring up its green color. Drain well.
Pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a large skillet. Turn the heat to medium. When the oil is hot, add the pancetta, and sauté until it’s just starting to crisp and has given up much of its fat. Add the garlic, and sauté for a minute to release its flavor. Add the broccoli, and season with nutmeg and a big pinch of salt. Sauté until the broccoli is just tender and fragrant, about 3 minutes or so (this step will coax flavor from the broccoli and lightly caramelize it). Add a splash of Marsala, and let it boil away. Add the walnuts, and season with black pepper. Give it another brief sauté to blend all the flavors. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil and the lemon zest. Serve hot or at room temp. This is great with roast chicken or pork chops. I also like it solo, with a few slices of olive oil and garlic-brushed bruschetta.
Good to know that NYU does a good job, at least. May end up eating there more than I like. Will be making your recipe toot de suite. It sounds wonderful.
Girl of Steel, I haven’t eaten in the NYC cafeteria in 25 years. I wonder if it’s still good? I guess you’ll find out. Keep me posted.
Right on the money re:vegetables and especially the way they’re served with so little respect and love as your typical American side-dish. Always hated that. We, at least, would make creamed spinach or a ratatouille. Love this take on broccoli…which I love, BTW.
Michael, Yes. It’s some kind of American cultural problem and it’s an embarrassment.
Yes, italians love their verdura! No meal was complete in our house w/out vegetables & salad. We had meat but my parents were not carnivores. This recipe will be the star when i have my cousins over for dinner this week-end. I love the addition of the nuts…very hearty, healthful & nutritious. It could be the basis of a lovely, meatless meal w/ good italian bread, a platter of sliced tomatoes dressed w/ EVOO & a glass of vino. PS i love the broccoli landscape…i could live there! I’d only need a skillet, EVOO, some garlic & a heat source. Remember the poem: “a loaf of bread, a jug of wine & thou beside me in the moonlight…” amore a tutti gl’italiani e loro chi vogliono essere . Z
Zingara, I could live there too.
2 of the super foods in great style
Yes Liti, and super good too. More colorful vegetable dishes to come.
Elly is happy with a green veggie just microwaved from the frozen state with every meal, but I really prefer a real preparation…but who has the time! No time last night, so I just did a recipe I’ve done before (where?) with broccoli rapa boiled with orecchiete and then tossed in a “sauce” of garlic, anchovies, hot red pepper flakes and bread crumbs. Threw the broccoli in the pasta pot about halfway to keep it from being too mushy (Elly’s preference…a good one in this case!) but I had to keep pushing the mass of pasta and broccoli down to keep it in the boiling water. The problem with verdure in the rushed kitchen is that there typically isn’t enough time to prepare an actually cooked vegetable dish and do the main course in the after-work time schedule most people have to deal with.
George, I know what you mean. SOmetimes I just make a vegetable, drag out a piece of cheese, vino, bread, and that’s it. Or a pasta with veg. I love broccoli rabe with anchovies.
This is a winner, Erica! Just scraping the last bits out of the pan now! Wouldn’t have thought that nutmeg would do anything to broccoli, but it was divine! Keep ’em coming
Thanks Dayna. I’m planning on posting a bunch more vegetable recipes. It’s weird how I’ve been so into vegetables now that they’re out of season. I guess it’s because you have to work them more to get any flavor.
This looks divine. And even I could do it.
Yes you can Lili, and then some.
re: Civic pride makes a heck of a loot more sense than pride in some random private profit-maximizing
corporation wiith a constantly changing roster of gamers that moves to whatever ton can make it the
most money.
Hi Erica,
I’m with you on the poor veg preparation, also on the ” no need to name” approach. Your combo sounds terrific. I have always enjoyed broccoli and toasted walnuts, but I never thougth to add a splash of Marsala. Genius, m’dear! And Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
HI Adri,
Happy Thanksgiving to you too.
E