dinner, 2/21/11

I love broccoli – even “straight” – but I wanted something slightly more imaginative to go with a beautiful fresh cod fillet I had picked up at the Greenmarket.  I tend to prefer vegetables barely cooked, and I almost always avoid complex treatments, but when I looked inside my paper folder with the “broccoli” tab, I was instantly seduced by the ingredients listed in a Kyle Phillips recipe I had printed some time back.

Halfway through the preparation however I was taken aback when I saw that the “brew” appeared, to my eyes, overcooked, and had come to resemble the limp contorno found in authentic Italian cookery.  I shouldn’t have worried, and I should have remembered how good Italian vegetable preparation can be at its best:  The Broccoletti con Pan Grattato e Acciunghe was awesome, and I will certainly be doing it again.

• cod fillet in green sauce (described by Mark Bittman as “a Basque staple”), that is, a seasoned fillet from Riverhead-based PE & DD Seafood in the Union Square Greenmarket, cooked slowly for maybe 10 to 12 minutes in a skillet with a generous amount of oil,  turned once halfway through, a handful of chopped parsley added at the time;  accompanied by broccoli, a beautiful, blue-bud sorta-Asian variety (“broccolini,” or  “baby broccoli,” which is actually cross between broccoli and Gai Lan, also known as Chinese Broccoli) from D&J Organic Farm, also in the Greenmarket, cooked with bread crumbs & anchovies (Broccoletti con Pan Grattato e Acciunghe)
• wine:  Spanish, Naia 2008 Rueda (Verdejo) by Jorge Ordonez, from 67 Wine