Even if we are in the middle of the festive season, I am not going to give a recipe for Christmas or New Year's Eve parties. With just few days left to Christmas, it's likely that most people have already planned where and how they will enjoy their festive meals; and those who are going to host a lunch or dinner at home, at this time, have probably decided all the recipes they are going to serve and maybe already started the preparation of some dishes. So I want to share another kind of recipe - which probably would make a good impression even on the Christmas table. In particular it is a recipe for broccoli, one of my all-time favorite seasonal product that I like to prepare and serve in many ways: simply boiled with a dressing of extra-virgin olive oil, broccoli is a very versatile side-dish going well with fish, meat, chicken and eggs, but it can be transformed into several different kinds of tasty sauces for pasta or other vegetarian main courses or into delicious side-dishes, alone or mixed with other winter vegetables. Today's recipe is featured in a cookbook that I am consulting a lot lately and is a great source of inspiration, "Ottolenghi The Cookbook" (other recipes from the book here). This recipe is actually a different version of one I use very often for broccoli; in fact while ingredients are the same (basically just broccoli, garlic, chile and olive oil, to which I sometimes add anchovy fillets), the cooking method makes the difference: I use to boil broccoli, then stir-fry with garlic and chile, while Ottolenghi, after boiling broccoli, grill it and then toss with olive oil, garlic and chile previously cooked together. It's very interesting to experiment how, simply using two different cooking techniques with the same ingredients, it is possible to obtain two different dishes (in this case both very tasty and flavorful).
