‘Long-Cooked Broccoli’ by Alice Waters and adapted by Tajal Rao at The New York Times inspired me to reconfigure the dish in to a sauce to put on pasta. I am still playing with this recipe but here it is in its current form, very close to the original.

The pasta goes beautifully with a cold glass of gazpacho!

Broccoli Sauce

Ingredients

1 kg broccoli head or heads

8 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)

3 anchovies (in olive oil)

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/8 tsp pepper

2 cups filtered water

1 tbs lemon juice and zest

Method

Wash the broccoli and remove any leaves. Slice head in to several florets and then slice cross sections. Peel the garlic and thinly slice.

Add the broccoli, garlic, chilli flakes, salt, pepper and water to a wide dutch oven or deep wide pan. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and gently simmer covered for about 50 minutes until the water has almost evaporated. Check periodically and If the pan starts to go dry, add more water while simmering.

Once cooked, empty the broccoli in to a blender with the anchovies, lemon juice and zest. Blend and adjust flavours accordingly if needed.

Serve over pasta topped with cashew nut ‘parmesan’ cheese (for recipe see blog ’ Red Lentil Pasta With Cashew Nut ‘Parmesan Cheese’ on 10 February 2022).