Vegetarian mains
Broccoli, blood orange & blue cheese salad
People too often cut away and waste the stalks when cooking calabrese broccoli. They are just as delectable as the main floret. The trick is to cut your florets with a long tail of stalk still attached. Trim the stalk no more than pencil-thick so that it cooks at the same speed. Try this with purple sprouting broccoli too, and use a standard orange when blood oranges are not in season.
Cook's notes
To perfectly segment an orange, remove the top and bottom and cut away the rest of the skin with a small, sharp knife in downward cuts, following the natural curve of the fruit. Hold the skinned fruit in one hand and make a simple V-shaped cut on each side of the membrane to release each segment. Rotate and repeat in order like a fleshy rolodex. Squeeze and save the juice from the remaining membrane.
Ingredients
- 1 large or 2 small leeks, trimmed and sliced into 1cm discs, rinsed well
- 300g broccoli, cut into tapered florets
- 2 blood oranges
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- olive oil
- 80g mixed salad leaves
- 2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
- 75g blue cheese
- 70g walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
- salt and pepper
Method
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Step 1
Put a large pan of well-salted water on to boil.
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Step 2
Place the leeks into the boiling water and simmer for 3-4 minutes, until just tender. Remove with a slotted spoon and leave to one side to cool.
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Step 3
Fill a large bowl with cold water. Boil the broccoli for 3 minutes, until tender. Drain and plunge straight into the bowl of cold water to cool. Remove and keep to one side.
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Step 4
Zest the oranges. Remove the skin from the oranges with a sharp knife. Over a bowl, remove the segments from their membrane, catching any juice in a bowl as you work and squeezing the juice from what remains.
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Step 5
Make a dressing by whisking 2 tablespoons of the orange juice with the mustard. Slowly whisk in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, until you have a thick, emulsified dressing. Alternatively, put everything into a lidded jar and shake like crazy to bring it together. Season to taste.
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Step 6
Gently mix the salad leaves, celery, leeks, broccoli and orange segments with enough dressing to coat.
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Step 7
Serve topped with crumbled blue cheese, walnuts and a little orange zest.