Dinner party number six - with complex broccoli!

The sixth dinner party was in fact a Sunday lunch, and was the afternoon after the fifth dinner party.

The menu (which, now that I look at it, contains lots of things cooked in wine):

Cheese plate – oozy camembert and local gruyere with spiced red wine plums and crackers

Beef and red wine pie

Roasted sweet potatoes and potatoes

Smoky-savoury roasted tenderstem broccoli, tossed with baby greens

White wine-poached pears with thick chocolate sauce and toasted almonds

Sunday lunch in progress

Aside from the fact that I managed to slightly burn some of the potatoes and sweet potatoes, I think it all turned out well and was a good cold-day meal. But what I really loved most about this dinner (aside from the chocolate sauce, of course; chocolate sauce always wins) was the broccoli. It’s so simple, but tastes complex. And who doesn’t love complex broccoli?!

Smoky-savoury roasted broccoli florets

Toss together:

250g tenderstem broccoli

2tbsp soy sauce

½ tsp sweet smoked paprika

1 tsp canola oil

¼ tsp salt

Spread the broccoli out evenly on a roasting tray, and slide into a hot (200C) oven. Roast for ten minutes – the broccoli should still have a bite to it. Serve as is, or toss with baby greens.

Seared sweet chili steak salad

I used to be a vegetarian, and while I do now eat meat, my diet still consists mostly of vegetarian food. Until recently, that is. For some unknown reason I've been craving red meat in the past few weeks. It's strange, but I generally go with what my body seems to need. More red meat it is, then.

This salad is a recent attempt to feed the new red meat craving. It's so simple that I honestly didn't expect much of the result, but it surprised me by being utterly delicious. And if you're interested in this kind of thing, it's also very high in protein, high in fibre, and low in fat.

Seared sweet chili steak salad
Makes enough for 2

100g good quality steak (preferably fillet), cut into strips
3 tbsp plus 1 tbsp sweet chili sauce
juice of 1 lemon, halved
2 tbsp canola oil, halved
1/2 of a small head of broccoli, cut into florets
1/2 cup thinly sliced red cabbage
1/2 cup cooked quinoa (or other grain such as couscous or bulgur wheat, if you prefer)
big handful wild rocket (baby spinach would also be good)
salt

Toss the steak strips with 3 tablespoons of sweet chili sauce and half of the lemon juice and set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium sized pan over high heat, till it starts to smoke slightly. Add the broccoli florets and toss around the pan for a few minutes, until the florets are cahrred here and there but still bright and crunchy. Remove the broccoli from the pan but keep the pan on the heat.

Add the steak strips and all the chili-lemon juices to the pan and stir fry for abot five minutes, until the strips are just cooked through and the juices have caramelized. Be careful not to overcook as that would make the steak tough and chewy.

In a medium bowl, toss together the broccoli, steak strips, and all remaining ingredients, including the remaining sweet chili sauce, lemon juice and oil. Toss and taste, adding as much salt as needed.

Summer salads

Cape weather is notoriously fickle, so I'm hesitant to say this, but it does seem like summer is arriving - for now, at least. When it's hot, I really don't want to keep the oven and stove on any longer than absolutely necessary, which means Andrew and I tend to eat salads for the duration of summer. Here is last night's inaugural summer salad:

It might look all innocent (and very green) in that picture, but there is a lot going on in that salad. If I'm going to eat salad for dinner, it has to be both interesting and substantial. Luckily, as I've mentioned before in this post, I tend to have lots of bits and pieces of already cooked leftover components in my fridge most of the time, so often I cobble hearty salads together using those bits and pieces.

Even if you don't have that advantage, though, it's easy enough to cook a big batch of one or more grains, chop and saute or roast a few vegetables, maybe cook some bacon or chicken over the weekend, and keep all of this in the fridge to use for salads during the week. Then it's just a matter of throwing these cooked ingredients together with fresh, raw ones in different combinations, and with different dressings.

Of course, this sometimes works out better than other times. Luckily last night's salad was a winner.

Inaugural simmer salad

about 1 cup cooked bulgur wheat
half a small head of broccoli, chopped and sauteed
5 small courgettes, sliced and sauteed
about 1 cup peas, sauteed
1/4 cup roasted cashews
3 rashers streaky bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 log garlic and herb chevin
juice of half a lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
squirt of honey
salt and pepper

Everything tossed together, except the chevin, which I crumbled on top. Dinner in less than five minutes.