Purple sprouting broccoli and tagliatelle
December 18, 2009
I don’t know if it’s just that my tastebuds are finally coming back to life, but this simplest of dishes has been my favourite meal of the week. I was sitting on the bus heading home last night, pondering the bag of purple sprouting broccoli in my fridge, and trying to conjure up an interesting meal from it. Then, from the depths of my memory, I remembered an Italian dish I’d read about that involved this very vegetable, along with a combination of three ingredients I can never resist – anchovies, chillies and garlic.
While I steamed the broccoli, I gently fried the anchovies, garlic and chilli in a frying pan. When the broccoli was barely tender, I tossed it into the frying pan with the other ingredients. When all nicely combined, a squeeze of lemon gave it a nice sharp edge (plus, it brings out the vivid green colours), and piled it onto the cooked pasta. Dee-licious!
By the way, I used peri-peri chillies in this dish, which I’d bought last year in Portugal, as I thought they’d work well with the Mediterranean flavours.
And the cupboard was bare… 
December 20, 2009 at 12:55 pm
This should be broadcast to the “I hate broccoli” brigade – then they would change their tune.
When I come back from our trip to Istanbul – I am really going to get going on these recipes.
who would have once thought that my daughter would need to resurrect my interest in cooking!!