Broccoli is great to grow in your garden as you can keep cutting off the stems and it continues to produce. Here, I have teamed it with a hollandaise sauce with a twist.
Charred sprouting broccoli with olive oil hollandaise
Serves 4
Ingredients
500g sprouting broccoli
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
100g unsalted butter
2 large egg yolks
1 Tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
lemon for serving
Method
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil.
When the water is boiling plunge in the broccoli stems and cook for 2 minutes. Drain and refresh in cold water immediately. Drain and set aside.
To make the hollandaise
This can be done by hand with a bowl and a whisk or if you're not feeling up to a bit of a workout use a food processor or hand blender.
Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan until the butter is melted. Put the egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and pepper into a blender and blend for a few seconds at high speed until you have a pale, thick mixture. Still at high speed, start pouring in the warm butter mixture in a thin, steady stream. Remember to start very slowly as you need the mixture to emulsify. As you add the butter mixture, the sauce should thicken. Continue pouring and blending until all the butter is used. Taste and adjust if needed. You want to be able to taste the lemon as this will lift the broccoli. Set aside somewhere warm until needed.
Heat a heavy-based frypan to hot and add the blanched broccoli. Try not to move it too much as you want it to slightly blacken on parts of the broccoli, which will give it a wonderful smoky flavour and a crispy texture. Turn over to char a little more, then sprinkle with sea salt flakes and freshly cracked pepper.
Serve with the olive oil hollandaise.
• Alison Lambert is one of the demonstrators at the Otago Farmers Market in Dunedin on Saturday mornings.
