For our first big-deal meal since the pandemic began, my wife and I treated ourselves to dinner at our favourite Waterford restaurant, Everett’s. The food was nearly perfect in that elevated fine-dining way: Scallops with chorizo and peas, duck served two ways – sautéed breast and braised legs wrapped in cabbage. All of it exquisitely arranged and deeply delicious.
But for me, the real treat was a supplement to the set menu. A bowl of long-cooked broccoli. Because as wonderful as everything else was, this was a dish that showed real courage on the part of chef Peter Everett.
It’s not easy swimming against the tide and I appreciate Everett’s willingness to strike a blow against the tyranny of the “tender-crisp”. That’s what I call the fashion of flash-cooked vegetables. Call me outdated, but I love the deeply developed flavours that come with long-cooking, no matter what the current mode might be.
Everett’s broccoli fits that bill: a soft tangle of tender-stem broccoli, bathed in brown butter, with chopped pistachios scattered over top. I ate almost the whole bowl by myself, to my wife’s chagrin.
I’m not sure how or why this kind of cooking fell out of favour. Maybe it’s because if not done carefully, long-cooking vegetables can be disastrous. Toss a bunch of broccoli in a big pot of water and boil it until it falls apart and you might rightly be put off the whole idea for good.
Like anything else, long cooking must be done carefully and with intent. Peel and cube broccoli stems and put them in a small pot with a bit of garlic, olive oil and just a splash of water. Cover and cook over medium heat until the stems begin to soften. Add the chopped florets and keep cooking until you can crush everything into a coarse puree with a wooden spoon. Season and add toasted pine nuts.
That was my dinner last night, served as a sauce for short, chewy casareccia dried pasta and topped with salty, pungent pecorino Romano cheese.
It wasn’t the prettiest dish I’ve ever fixed, not unless you love olive-drab. But it was one of the most satisfying. The kind of food where you take a bite and exhale softly. It was deeply flavourful in a way that quickly cooked tender-crisp broccoli will never be.
There’s a bit of science that explains why this is. Vegetables, even the hardest ones, are made mostly of water. This is contained in tough little cellulose bubbles. It takes a combination of heat and moisture to soften the cellulose to the point that the liquid can be released. When this happens the various chemical components in the liquid combine, creating other, more complex flavours.
You can see for yourself. Many years ago I did an experiment where I simmered a carrot and tasted a slice every minute (yes, I actually got paid for doing things like that). It was obvious how the taste developed from simple and straightforward to sweeter and more complex.
Now, I don’t want to get into a whole falsely reductive “this way good/that way bad” argument. Tender-crisp vegetables have their place. It depends on the dish and what kinds of flavours, colours and textures the cook is aiming for.
There’s no better example of this than the cruciferous cousins broccoli and cauliflower. Happily, those are two of the best vegetables you can buy right now during this transition season from summer to winter.
Cooked briefly, or even served raw, these vegetables have one personality. Take your time with them – carefully, remember – and another character entirely emerges.
Blanch broccoli briefly in a big pot of salted water and the flavour is bold and brassy. Toss it with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and maybe some capers or salted anchovies and you’ve got a lovely sunny dish.
Cook the same combination of ingredients slowly, as I did, and the taste is transformed to comforting and autumnal.
This is even more true with cauliflower. Cook it briefly and you can use it in the same sorts of dishes you’d use broccoli. But, ah, take your time, heat the cauliflower gently to the point that you can crush the florets between your fingers, and you’ve got a vegetable that can become truly regal.
Cook it in a custard, for example. Puree the softened cauliflower in a blender with cream and eggs. Bake it in a slow oven until it is set.
Top this with garlicky toasted breadcrumbs and you’ve got a delicious rustic accompaniment to a Sunday roast. But if you’ve got some caviar, you’re in for a real treat.
And if, by some stroke of fortune, you can get your hands on white truffles, you’ve got a dish that is really special (the compounds formed when you slow-cook cauliflower are related to some of the same ones that perfume truffles).
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait for a visit from the truffle fairy, or even a date night at a special restaurant. All it takes is a little care and long-cooked vegetables will become a luxury you can enjoy every day.
