Chicken soup with broccoli (Κοτόσουπα με μπρόκολο)

Yes, broccoli again. I've uprooted all our broccoli plants, but I still have a freezer-shelf full of the stuff. It has occurred to me that we have been eating a lot of broccoli this winter, but this is for economy more than anything else. Instead of buying winter vegetables, I use our bumper crop of broccoli wherever I can. We have so much broccoli from the garden, that I par-boil a large pot of broccoli twice a week (yes, really), which gives me a chance to use it in different ways when I come home from work, eg stir-fries, soups, fritters, etc. I'm so glad I'm a really good cook, because I can cook broccoli this often and make sure that my while family still manages to enjoy their meal. We have had it in so many different forms, that they never complain. I'm that creative. Even the dog eats broccoli mixed in with her food. And if you know a thing or two about broccoli, it is regarded as a superfood.

The broccoli season is over - my neighbour's broccoli plants (the ones with the yellow flowers) are going  the way mine did and they need uprooting.

I knew that from a long time ago, when one of our Algerian students at the Institute researched the "Genetic and epigentic control of glucosinolates pathways synthesis in broccoli", whatever that means (I proofread a lot of stuff which I don't always understand), a thesis which contained a lot of research on the benefits of broccoli in the diet. Since then, broccoli is described in the internet press as a nutritional show stopper, an anti-cancer agent, a tumour reducer, an age suppresor, a vitamin-packed agent with more Vitamin C than an orange, among others. Well, I'm glad to hear all that, because we really do eat a lot of broccoli, and it just might help us all to keep up our good health, now that Greece has no public health system (just yet, apart from hospitals). We don't lead the kind of life that gives us the privilege of making proclamations like "I'm President of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!" like George Bush did. But lucky for us, broccoli keeps us healthy.

This broccoli soup was made on the go, with little time to spare for 'real' cooking; I was harvesting and processing celery for the freezer, at the same time as picking spinach from among the tall and rather overgrown nettles that have now surrounded all the spinach plants. But don't take my soft whinge seriously: the winter garden is really easy to maintain. The plants seem to grow by themselves, they rarely need much care, and all I do is harvest. It's really not as difficult as it may sound. I just wish I could be doing something else instead, like work on the project, which is underway - slowly, slowly...

I made this amazing soup last Friday, despite my aching bones, after a very tiring week, as I thought about the three-day weekend that we are now in the middle of (it's Kathara Deftera tomorrow). Perhaps everyone loved it so much because it was a cold night, but I have a feeling that they liked it because it was really delicious. it has a pungent taste because fo teh way I used the garlic. Normally I cook it in some way, eg sauteeing in oil before being added to a meal. In this recipe, the garlic is not cooked at all, so it has a strong but fresh flavour.

You need:
4 chicken backs, with necks
4-5 medium potatoes
about 3 cups of broccoli cut into bite sized individual heads
2 large cloves of garlic
salt, pepper and oregano


Boil the chicken backs, broccoli and peeled potatoes in a large pot of water, till the potatoes are soft. Remove the chicken, broccoli and potatoes from the pot. Puree 3 potatoes with the garlic and some of the stock water (strained to remove impurities from the chicken) in a blender. Pour the puree into another pot. Strain all the remaining liquid into the pot with the puree. Add the chicken meat (which you shredded from the chicken backs and necks), and all the seasonings. Chop the remaining potatoes and all the broccoli into small pieces. Mix well to form a blended soup. Heat through.

Serve the soup piping hot, with crusty bread. It will not make you feel poor as you think that you are cooking again with broccoli which you grew yourself; it will make you feel somewhat superior, having so much superfood at your disposal.

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Broccoli falafel

Inspired by a recipe for cauliflower fritters, I decided to make something similar using broccoli instead, because we still have broccoli int he garden, but no more cauliflower. Broccoli plants re-sprout many times once the main head is cut, whereas cauliflower does not, hence the abundance of this highly nutritious winter crop.

I started off with some leftover boiled broccoli (about 3 cups worth), drained of excess liquids. I pureed this (including the stalks, which were quite tender), adding a finely grated onion, 2 finely minced cloves of garlic and a few sprigs of finely minced parsley. To spice things up, I added some ground ginger, paprika, cumin, pepper and salt. To bind the patties: 2 eggs, 150g grated cheese, 1/2 cup of chickpea flour (for flavour) and, instead of ready breadcrumbs which I'd run out of, I whizzed about 1 1/2 cups of paximadi in the blender and added them to the wet ingredients to give a soft, not-so-dry pattie that would remain firm when cooked.

Falafel tends to break up, so after forming the patties and flouring them carefully on both sides, I placed them one by one in quick succession in the frying pan where olive oil had been heated to a very high temperature. This is important because oil cools down in the pan as you add things to it, and your fritters will become heavy, oil-sodden and fragile.

The falafel were cooked on both sides till golden crusty brown. We had them with spanakorizo, which is a lot of green food for one day, my husband says...

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Broccoli and potato hotpot (Μπρόκολο και πατάτες με σάλτσα)

Broccoli is a sweet winter vegetable which can be used in a variety of ways; it can be fried, baked, steamed or boiled. We have been eating HEAPS of broccoli this season, and we never get bored of it. I cook it with varying flavours - it goes very well in Asian cuisine, especially stir fries. Here is a really easy broccoli recipe to prepare and cook. It gives broccoli a Greek flavour and warms you up in the cold weather (we've been having lots of that lately).

You need:

a medium-large head of broccoli (about 600g), cut into florets - you can also use sprouting broccoli  

10-12 small potatoes, peeled (if they are of various sizes, cut them in half to make them even-sized) 

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut in chunks

1 tablespoon of tomato puree

1 large fresh tomato, grated 

1 large onion, roughly chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1/2 wineglass of olive oil

salt and pepper (and oregano, optional)

Heat the oil in a wide deep pot, and cook the onion and garlic till translucent without burning. Add the broccoli, carrots and potatoes, and stir well to coat all the vegetables in oil. Let them cook for 2-3 minutes on high heat, stirring just enough to stop them sticking to the bottom of the pot. Then add the tomatos and seasonings, with a cup of water (about 250ml). The water should not completely cover the vegetables. Turn the heat down, cover the pot with a lid, and let the vegetables cook till tender (about 30 minutes). Check the pot from time to time to ensure that there are enough liquids, and stir lightly so that the vegetables at the bottom of the pot rise to the top. Take care not to break the potatoes. Serve warm.

This meal tastes even better the next day. It can be re-heated without a fuss. Although it is a vegan dish, it is easily adapted to a vegetarian one. The leftovers can be placed in an ovenproof dish and grilled slightly to give a crispy edge to the vegetables, and/or some cheese can be placed on top. A crusty loaf of bread is vital to mop up the juices in the pot, which are too precious to discard. 

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Broccolopita (Μπροκολόπιτα)

Upon hearing the word 'pita', a Greek will immediately put a picture in their mind of filo pastry and some kind of cheese-based filling, with or without greens, or possibly containing grated squash. Broccoli won't commonly be one of the filling ingredients, but since I have run out of spinach and squash for the time being, and there is a lot of broccoli at the moment and not much else growing in the garden, I thought I'd try making a broccoli pie.

My first attempt picked up on a Betty Crocker recipe, which included chicken and was self-crusting. It was a very tasty pie, but nothing like a filo-pastry pita filled that I usually make. The pie was a self-crusting one, so it felt rather like eating a slice of bread rather than a pie (you could practically butter the slices).

Broccoli is not really so tasty on its own - it feels like you are eating grassy water. It needs fat, like oil or butter. If you add some egg and cheese to it, you get a more delicious taste. By adding some onion to this basic mixture, you get something that smells and tastes like a leek pie: prasopita (leek pie) is a very popular kind of Greek pita. Using this idea, I made a broccoli pita, in the same way that I make spanakopita: layers of pastry are spread with a thick filling dotted over the pastry sheet, then covered by more pastry, with another layer of filling, and finally topped with more pastry.

The pie was cooked in the oven compartment of our wood-fire heater, which made the pie even more tasty, as the pastry was well browned, both the top and the bottom. This is important because soggy pastry ruins pies. To ensure that the filling wasn't too moist (broccoli contains a lot of water), I added a small amount of dried breadcrumbs, just to ensure that any excess liquid would be absorbed. The broccoli was cooked for 5 minutes in boiling water, then drained and cut up into small pieces, which were mixed with some ricotta cheese (a novel imported product in Cretan supermarkets, which I had bought to try, as I have never had ricotta before - I usually use the local Cretan mizithra), some finely chopped onion, an egg, salt and pepper. This pie was made with some store-bought filo pastry which I wanted to use up, as it was showing signs of cracking due to dryness (you can see this in the photo). I normally make my own - it is so much tastier and has better texture.

I had a small bowlful of filling left over from the pie making session, so the next day, I made a rough dough and shaped it into seamless pies, similar to what is known as sfakiani pita in Crete. A ball of dough is rolled out thickly and a ball of filling is placed inside it. The dough is stretched to cover the filling, like a ball, and it is sealed on the top, rather like a pouch. This ball is pressed down lightly so that it doesn't break, and is rolled out into a flat pie which looks like a thick pancake. These flat pies are then pan-fried on each side in a shallow frying pan, in a little olive oil, until the pastry is golden-brown.

I regret not adding some parsely or mint to the filling - when I'm experimenting, I tend to use the bare basic ingredients and forget to add the touch of spice that often turns a basic meal into a taste experience. But each pita was also very good in its own way; the pastry pie was excellent and very similar to my regular pita recipes (it was creamier, and the pan-fried pies were also a success, especially when accompanied by a little sriracha sauce to add a little more flavour.

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Frugal chicken and broccoli pie

The broccoli season is now in full swing in our garden. I cut no less than 8 perfect heads of broccoli from the garden at the weekend, and chopped them into perfect florets before puting them in the freezer. Having just used up the very last of our frozen spinach from the previous season in a spanakopita the other day, I felt that the broccoli made up for its loss.

Here's my first broccoli meal for the season, from a Betty Crocker recipe for self-crusting broccoli and chicken pie.

I didn't add more grated cheese on top of the pie - there's more than enough protein in it already.

We don't have Bisquick in Crete (or maybe we do at AB supermarket, where all foreign tastes and imported Western staples seem to be found), so I made a substitute, as stated on this wikihow site. My pie is not gluten-free, as stated in the original recipe.

The recipe yielded a medium sized pie (about 6 pieces) and 3 muffin sized pies.

There was some mixture left over, so I also got three muffin-sized pies, made in separate ramekins. With all the specials going these days on chicken, eggs and cheese at various discount supermarkets, this was turned into an incredibly frugal meal to make. It was also very easy to whip up for an evening meal.

Because I was in a bit of a rush, I stuck to the original recipe. But if I make this again, I would add a spicy agent to jazz up the taste. I had my piece with some sriracha sauce to go with it, for some extra spunk.

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Purple sprouting broccoli with tahini sauce (Μπρόκολο με ταχίνι)

When my husband planted the winter vegetable garden last year, he thought he was planting cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower heads. What we got instead was cabbage and broccoli heads, and purple sprouting broccoli. Only two cauliflower heads emerged. This created a lot of grief because we had too much broccoli all at once. Some was eaten, some was given away, some was cooked and added to the dog's food, and some just didn't make it to anyone's plate. I mourn food that ends up being thrown away, so I chopped it into little pieces and threw it into the garden, to be mulched as compost.

Purple sprouting broccoli, at the end of its growing season. Brassica vegetables are even tastier when they've felt the frost. Their stems are sometimes covered in a thick skin, which doesn't cook very well: the centre of the stem is soft, but the outside peel is stringy. I peeled them slightly before use, and incised the stalks to ensure they would cook tender. 

Purple sprouting broccoli. If we didn't grow it accidentally, I probably wouldn't have the chance to use it. Its name makes it sound unusual, as well as exotic, possibly helping it to command a good price on the market. Its name would also look good on a menu card. But all this time, it is still a broccoli, not better or worse than its cousin. Either broccoli varieties can be used to make the same dish, but one sounds like a freezer-bag variety, while the other sounds more elite.

Looking through the internet, I found a salad recipe by Ottolenghi using purple sprouting broccoli. It also uses another unusual ingredient: tahini, which also used to be considered an exotic ingredient in Crete. Mainly used in Northern Greece, it is now commonly available in Greek supermarkets all over the country. Tahini, a sesame seed paste, is the main ingredient used to make the Greek dense store-bought halva. It is the Greek answer to peanut butter, which is a relatively unknown ingredient in Greece. Many modern Greek cooks add tahini to cakes and biscuits, as well as being used as a spread. It has become very popular lately, and is no longer found in just one form: you can buy honey, orange and even chocolate flavoured tahini these days.

We have to remember that what is considered exotic in one culture may be a regular standard product in another culture. In a recent Guardian article, Eliane Glaser questions whether the 'new food culture' is a 'big fat lie' because it is mainly propounded by celebrity chefs and cannot be easily followed by ordinary home cooks:

"I think it's great that in recent years we've woken up to the wonders of fresh, local, home-cooked food. But this new food culture is not quite as it seems... Reality, normality, hard-working families: this is the mantra of the multimillionaire celebrity chef. But the recipes have trouble sticking to it because, despite the homely trappings, they are essentially restaurant food...  look at the ingredients: mirin, poussin, pomegranate juice, quail, harissa, sake, garlic oil. It would take an afternoon to track them down."

What may be a British 'illusion' when it comes to the freshness of food or certain 'unusual' ingredients is in fact a daily reality in many places around the world. My purple sprouting broccoli, once planted, grew unassisted, hence the "wonders of fresh, local, home-cooked food" in our daily meals. What's more, this is one reason why, despite the recession that has hit my country and will not go away for many years, I find it difficult to think that I will go hungry or lack nutritious food in my daily diet. When I eat fresh local seasonal food, it has nothing to do with elitist ideologies that have to do with locavorism. I eat what I have. And that's what I have: fresh local seasonal food. At the same time, I will probably eat better than other poor people elsewhere: better to be poor in Greece than poor in a country like the UK.

 Broccoli with tahini sauce, with the broccoli plant that inspired me to make the dish

I followed a recipe by Ottolenghi that uses these two 'exotic' ingredients with some minor tweaks: I didn't use the sesame seeds (the tahini has more than enough sesame in it); to make the dressing runny, I used a teaspoon of white balsamic vinegar instead of water; and I didn't blanch the broccoli florets for just three minutes - Greeks like their vegetables cooked till tender, not al dente, so I boiled it till it was cooked through. Then I drained it and placed it back in the pot, and let it cook till it dried, instead of char-grilling it (to avoid using two cooking utensils). The drying-out is important to give the broccoli a crunchy rather than limp boiled taste. 

 

My foray into celebrity chef recipes got me interested in more Ottolenghi-style food. See you tomorrow on that one.

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Broccoli pasta bake (Μπρόκολο με ζυμαρικά)

Our winter garden can only be deemed a success - never before have I seen large unblemished heads of broccoli and cauliflower, bursting out of their leafy homes, growing in the damp December soil of the Cretan earth. This garden fresh produce has replaced our regular weekly serving of stamnagathi salad. The only problem is that we planted them all at the same time, and can't eat them as quickly as they grow, meaning that some have been given up to very appreciative neighbours.

Broccoli doesn't need much cooking time when it is boiled and eaten as a salad, as it contains a lot of water and becomes mushy when overcooked. We started off eating it as a plain warm horta-style salad, flavoured with the typical Greek oil, lemon and salt dressing. A very pretty version of this is to mix cauliflower and carrots with the broccoli.

Broccoli is also a great addition to a stir-fry, since it doesn't need a long cooking time, and stays crispy: the less broccoli is cooked, the more its antioxidant value and Vitamin C content are retained.

Wild black mustard: a relative of broccoli. Considered a weed by most people, it's edible.

Broccoli is a perfect match for cheesy pasta sauces. It has a leafy taste similar to horta, it's practically odourless (compared with cauliflower) and its greeny-blue colour blends well in a macaroni hotpot. The Romans were most likely the first to grow broccoli, hence their Italian name. Broccoli is related to the cauliflower (which it resembles very much, save the colour) and the cabbage, but it also related to a largely unknown leafy green: wild mustard. The shape of the leaves of the mustard plant resemble the broccoli's, and the flowers of the mustard plant look very much like tiny heads of broccoli. Wild mustard grows profusely in Crete, and those who know it use it as a leafy green in various dishes.

A search through the internet for pasta broccoli recipes reveals that pasta-broccoli dishes are one of the more kid-friendly green meals. Apparently a broccoli pasta hotpot freezes well, but it's very simple to make when you have some fresh broccoli on hand, as it uses mainly kitchen staples like milk, cheese and pasta. You can also add other bits and pieces to spice it up a little. My version includes spicy sausage.

You need:
500g pasta of your choice: I used a mixture of cheese-filled tortellini and penne
a small head of broccoli, cut into florets: I also used the tender parts of the stalk, sliced thinly
a few tablespoons of olive oil: in Crete, we use a lot more than that
a large onion, chopped small
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 small ripe tomato, pureed
1 spicy sausage, cut into very thin slices
a cup of grated cheese
500g of milk: non-fat milk won't work very well; you can use cream, but it's more fattening
1-2 tablespoons of mustard
salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add the broccoli and pasta. Cook for 10-12 minutes, then drain well. While this is happening, heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic till translucent. Add the sausage and cook till heated through. Mix in the mustard and tomato (these two ingredients are optional, but they lend a spicier taste to the finished dish); season with salt and pepper. Mix the sausage with the cooked pasta and broccoli till well blended. Pour into an oven-proof dish, and mix in the cheese. Pour the milk over the pasta and bake for half an hour, till the milk turns into a sauce and the cheese has melted.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything.

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