Brassica Oleracea

I’ve been making this Alton Brown broccoli recipe a lot lately, probably because it ranks high in searches for “roasted broccoli” or something.

Actually, I should clarify that I use this recipe for the temperature (425 degrees) and time (10 minutes). A lot of it I ignore, omit or change. For example, I don’t ever use cheese, mostly because I have this idea that it “takes a lot of effort” to unwrap cheese and grate it. This is strange because I already have the microplane out, but for some reason it’s “a lot of extra effort” to unwrap cheese. I also don’t use bread crumbs, mostly because I don’t understand why. So we’re left with broccoli, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.

The one tip I appreciated from this recipe was to mix the stuff by hand in a bowl before spreading it on a baking sheet (or cake pan, as specified in the recipe). It’s better to do this than mix it in the pan; better coverage.

Anyhow, so starting with the base of oil, garlic, salt and pepper you can then add other elements; this is what I’ve been goofing with. I’ve looked at The Flavor Thesaurus to get ideas. The other day I mixed some anchovies in with the garlic/oil/salt/pepper stuff; this worked well. Today I goofed with the broccoli and garlic recommendations in the book, adding ginger and oyster (flavored) sauce. I think it was good.