Domestic goddess rating: 0% (murdered some PSB this evening, am racked with guilt) Five-a-day: 4/5 Food miles: about 40
On the menu: porridge and juice (breakfast); beef and vegetable soup (lunch); fillet steak, potatoes and PSB disaster (supper)
You know what? I should have known better.
I’ve always had a bit of a sniffy thing about serving side vegetables that have been mucked about with. That is, with sauces, extra flavourings… whatever. I don’t mind baked leeks – they’re lovely, in fact. And cooking in butter I can just about cope with. But mostly I just like my veggies plain – steamed and undressed.
But – in the way that you do – I decided I was being prejudiced and unreasonable, so I thought I’d have a go at a recipe I’ve spotted a few times now. It’s a rare recipe with purple sprouting broccoli as its main ingredient, and lots of people mention it, so I figured it was worth a try.
How wrong can you be. Cooking PSB with anchovies sounds kind of intriguing, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, you don’t realise until it’s on your plate that the powerful, salty taste of the anchovies batters every last vestige of flavour from the PSB and leaves no survivors. What’s more, that lovely crunchy texture well-cooked PSB has? Well with this recipe, it’s reduced to a shapeless sludge (and I followed it to the letter – honest). No texture, no flavour but salt, and a post-industrial browny-purple colour to boot. Can you imagine anything more horrible? I do wonder if these so-called chefs actually taste the stuff they ask us to cook sometimes.
Please – if you ever see anything combining the lovely subtlety of PSB with anchovies, don’t touch that recipe. It really, really doesn’t work. I promise. I’ve tasted it, and only just lived to tell the tale.
Filed under: Cooking, Recipes, Seasonal eating, healthy eating | Tagged: anchovies, failure, flavours, purple sprouting broccoli, recipes which don't work
