Hetty McKinnon’s recipes usually delight my senses. This one caught my attention with it’s fanciful name. In fact, for some reason, this reminds me of the colorful imagery in the first stanza of McCartney’s and Lennon’s Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. You remember those imaginative words.
“Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes”
Surely, a proper broccoli forest would have fit right in among those tangerine trees and marmalade skies!
So, here we are with colorful mind pictures and a very tasty recipe.
This recipe is from Hetty McKinnon’s cookbook Tenderheart. You can order the cookbook through your local bookstore or buy on Amazon here. The recipe also appears on the Epicurious site here.
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.
Broccoli Forest Loaf
Ingredients
- 1 small head of broccoli (trimmed and cut into large florets)
- 1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
- 1 t. baking powder
- 1/2 t. baking soda
- 1/2 t. ground turmeric
- 1/2 t. chile powder
- 1 T. sugar
- 1 1/2 C. grated cheddar (I used sharp white)
- 1 bunch chives (chopped)
- 1/3 C. chopped black olives
- 1/2 C. extra-virgin olive oil
- 3/4 C. sour cream
- 1 large egg
Directions
- Step 1 Parboil broccoli florets until they are crisp-tender (about 2-3 minutes). Remove from boiling water and immerse in ice water until the broccoli is totally cool. Drain and let the broccoli dry. Set aside.
- Step 2 Prepare an 8 inch by 4 inch loaf pan by spraying it with cooking spray and then lining the pan with parchment. Let the parchment hang over the sides of the pan–giving you “handles” to remove the loaf from the pan after it is baked.
- Step 3 Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, turmeric, chile powder and sugar together in a large bowl. Fold in cheddar, chives and chopped olives. Set aside.
- Step 4 In another bowl, whisk olive oil, sour cream and egg together until smooth. Fold the dry ingredients into this wet mixture.
- Step 5 Spoon the thick batter into the prepared pan. Push broccoli florets into the batter. Bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours. (My loaf took a bit of extra time. Ovens, of course, may vary.) Your Broccoli Forest Loaf is done when the top is a pretty golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then remove the loaf from the pan (using the parchment handles) and cool on a rack until the loaf is totally cooled.
- Step 6 Slice and serve.
