Thursday, June 10, 2010

flowering broccoli with angel hair pasta and ground pork


I love the new vegetables I am trying here in Hong Kong. One of my favourites so far is flowering broccoli. I see from some web searching that other countries call this "Chinese broccoli". I think I will have to avoid names like that because otherwise every vegetable I meet will be called "Chinese". These broccoli stalks are tender and they also have soft leaves that are similar in taste to mild spinach.


Flowering broccoli needs very little preparation: just a quick steam, or in this case, a dip in the pasta's boiling water while it is just finishing cooking. The ground pork is fried separately with a couple of not too spicy chillies and then tossed with the hot pasta. Easy and delicious.


You can easily use normal broccoli in this dish: just add it to the cooking pasta a minute or two earlier.
Flowering Broccoli with Angel Hair Pasta and Ground Pork
serves 2

250 g ground pork
1 red chilli
1 green chilli
2 cloves garlic
125 g whole wheat angel hair pasta
200 g flowering broccoli
sprinkle of parmesan cheese (optional)

Scramble fry the ground pork in a non-stick frying pan until no pink remains.
Add the chillies and garlic and fry for a couple of minutes until they are aromatic.
Meanwhile, add the pasta to a pan of boiling water. Consult the package directions; one minute before pasta is finished cooking, add the broccoli to the pan.
Drain pasta and broccoli and toss with pork mixture.
Season to taste with pepper and parmesan cheese (if desired).

5 comments:

Sarah, Maison Cupcake said...

Hello there, this looks like a tasty week day supper and I presume it's influenced by your new surroundings?

I have been musing about your genius DIY light box. I must get some little lamps like that and make one.

Thank you for your iPhoto suggestions by the way, I must look into what features my version has that I'm not using yet. I discovered a plugin to export stuff direct to picasa which I'm finding very useful. My version is 3 years old so doesn't export directly to Flickr like the newer ones and I think I prefer Picasa anyway.

Sarah said...

Hi Sarah, I am just about to make a new light box. When I moved I threw away the old cardboard box and just kept the diffusion paper. This time I think I'll put openings covered with diffusion paper on the left and right side panels as well, so I can use side lighting. And I plan to cut away the bottom of the box, so I can set the box down on an interesting surface. I'll definitely report how it goes.

I wonder about Picasa--do you export to there because then you blog using those pictures? I usually just export from iPhoto to my desktop and then upload into Blogger using the Blogger post editor. Do you think there is a benefit to using Picasa as an intermediate step? I am curious about all kinds of organising questions like this.

Jamie said...

Oh I want tips about iphoto too!! Need help! And this dish is wonderful! Love broccoli and this is a wonderful flavorful dish.

Sarah said...

Hi Jamie, I have been over to your blog to leave you a message about iPhoto. I am still a beginner myself, so I would love to hear about how you use it too. Do you use Picasa? Sarah (Maison Cupcake) was saying she has been doing this. How do you manage your pictures?

sculptures for sale said...

Good one!
This one actually looks good!

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