Here's a fairly exotic way of doing broccoli. It doesn't take long and the resulting dish is quite substantial and can be served on its own or with maybe just a salad.
I cooked this as a kind of experiment. I've cooked cauliflower with green olives several times, so that's where the inspiration came from. I had some beautifully ripe, salty Turkish black olives in the fridge and when I came home with a head of fresh broccoli I'd scored at the market, the idea to put them together came naturally.
While I was cooking, I was thinking, 'This is definitely going to be good,' so I wrote down all the ingredients and steps as I was working. Sure enough, when I served it up to my wife, she said,'Wow, that's really good.' Now, it doesn't always work out that way. It was a few weeks before I got round to writing up the recipe and when I read through the list of ingredients, I thought, 'Did I really put those herbs and spices together in that dish?' Well, the answer is, yes, I did, because I had the written account of the process as proof. So, if you're thinking it's a bit weird, trust me. Give it a bash and see what you think, but I think you'll like it.
Here's how to do the recipe for three or four people.
About 700g of broccoli
3 or 4 mediumish potatoes
1 onion
A handful of black olives
A couple of cloves of garlic
2 tomatoes
A pinch of saffron
A half teaspoon of coriander seed
A half teaspoon of black mustard seed
A third of a teaspoon of
red chilli
A couple of pinches of
rosemary
A pinch of thyme
Salt
Olive oil
Peel and chop the potatoes and parboil in a little salted water for about five minutes. Drain and set aside. Fry the chopped onion for a few minutes with the mustard seeds, then add chopped garlic and saffron. Fry for a further minute before adding the broccoli, cut into florets (use the stem too, cut into pieces), the potato, chopped tomato, whole olives, crushed coriander seed, chilli, rosemary and thyme. Mix gently and cover the pan. Cook on a medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes.