>From: "Agnes Ingram" >
>I was reading about broccoli being such a healthy food to eat. How can
>you fix it so it tastes better than just steaming it.


Preparing Broccoli

The main thing is, don't steam it. No quick-cooking vegetable tastes as
good steamed as it does boiled. If you're worried about losing nutrients
in the cooking water, eat more of it. I figure you'll eat more of it if
it tastes good anyway.

Second, use LOTS of rapidly boiling water (at least 3 quarts for a
bunch), and bring it back to a rapid boil as quickly as possible. (But
only partially cover the pot while it comes back to the boil, and then
finish cooking it uncovered.) You want to cook the broccoli as quickly
as possible. Start testing it at 3 minutes, and it should rarely take
more than 5 minutes.

Third, serve it immediately. If you can't serve it immediately, plunge
the cooked broccoli into ice water. If you don't, it'll turn
yellow-green and get sulfur-y tasting. Then either serve it cold, or
reheat it by plunging it into boiling water for no more than 30 seconds
(and then serve immediately)--if you have to do this, make sure you've
split the broccoli into narrow pieces.

Fourth, but by no means least important, peel your broccoli. (Again,
you'll get more nutrients out of peeled broccoli that you actually eat
then unpeeled broccoli that you leave on your plate.) The skin takes
much longer to cook than anything else, so if you leave the broccoli
unpeeled, the florets will be mush by the time the stem is tender.
You'll almost always want to split the broccoli lengthwise into at least
2 pieces, and if the stem is big, split it into 4 so it will cook
faster. And throw away any woody stem.

Sauces: I like butter & lemon (and I've salted the cooking water, 1/2
Tbs per quart). Fresh bread crumbs browned in butter are good too.
Hollandaise, obviously--but then, hollandaise is good on styrofoam
packing peanuts. Cold, it's good with a little vinaigrette.


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