Broccoli. The Nutritious Flower

BROCCOLI. The nutritious flower.
To kick off this blog, and to mark that we are in autumn and the cold is starting to settle in, what better than to start with a nutritious and delicious soup?Who doesn’t fancy a hot soup these days? I enjoy them a lot, and I missed them so much in Malaysia, where it is warm all year round.
To take advantage of the broccoli season, I went to the market, as Ido almost every day, and bought some broccoli that looked too good to ignore. I love broccoli, and has a special place in my heart from my childhood. When in those days replaced the cauliflower,which I hated! The scent it gave off while cooking was so strong, you could smell it from the stairwell.

  Today we’ll cook broccoli cream soup!
There are two principle points to recognize a nicebroccoli: its striking, dark, green color and firmness to the touch. There are generally two crops a year, in spring and autumn, so it will be best at these times. My advice for storing broccoli isrefrigerated, unwashed in perforated plastic bags in the vegetable drawer. If left unrefrigerated, broccoli quickly becomes fibrous, and, if wet, it can become moldy. It can be stored for 3-5 days, and youcan also freeze it after blanching.
Broccoli is a variety of cabbage, and according to recent genetic and geographic analysis, it appears that broccoli originated in Italy, and also led to thecauliflower. It is a very healthy product, is a rich source of vitamins B and C, fiber, and other nutrients. Studies place it among the 10 healthiest vegetables.
Being a relative of cabbage, it can havea sulfur taste, which becomes more dominant and nasty with prolonged cooking. (Broccoli also loses some of its nutrients through cooking.) It is relatively fibrous, but after boiling, and thanks toits pectin, it can be made into a thin creamy puree. Different varieties provide different balances of bitterness and sweetness. All varieties have great predilection for salty and umami, hence it’s...