One of the delightful things about days off, along with gleefully sitting around in your pants for as long as you fancy and not removing your slippers EVER, is ample amounts of time to whip up special treats for favourite people.  My lovely Mum’s birthday fell during my recent holiday between jobs.  I took some time out of my busy slippers-wearing schedule to make a special salad for a shared birthday lunch.

I’ll admit I was slow to the chargrilled vegetable trend.  Burnt, I thought.  And a lot of fiddling around just to achieve something that’s usually an accident.  What’s wrong with a little light steaming or boiling and some butter?  Vegetables are getting ahead of themselves.

But then one night I spent a decent amount of time making Ottolenghi’s roast chicken with sumac, za’atar and lemon.  And alongside this recipe in his book ‘Ottolenghi: The Cookbook‘ (a gloriously red, weighty tome) he casually mentions it might go well with some of his chargrilled broccoli with chilli and garlic.  And so I came to be a chargrilled vegetable convert.

Chargrilling veges gets a little smokey sure, but it well makes up for it with the lovely flavour.  I am lucky enough to have a huge ridged cast iron pan, a beast of a thing that could no doubt deliver quite the wallop to any burglar, given that I don’t keep any other weaponry to hand, and this is very good for chargrilling the veges.  I have used a non-stick pan for chargrilling too however and it works fine, so don’t worry if you don’t have any cast iron to hand.

My humble little salad cannot claim to even touch the sides of the hallowed Ottolenghi, but I do hope you’ll give it a try.  The chargrilled broccoli spreads its lovely smokiness throughout, which makes it perfect for Autumn and Winter, and the addition of the butter beans means it’s substantial enough for by itself if you wish.  It’s really not hard to do – I promise you’ll have most of the ingredients to hand.  We had it for my Mum’s birthday with thick slices of fresh bread and hummus, but it’s equally tasty with a little grilled meat.

Ingredients:

1 head of broccoli cut into florets

Olive oil for the pan, plus another 2T

1 tin of butter beans

Juice of half a lemon

Flaky sea salt

Pinch of chilli flakes

2 handfuls of mixed salad leaves, for example spinach and rocket

1/2 cup toasted walnut halves, broken into pieces

Method:

Bring a medium saucepan of water to the boil.  Add the broccoli and cook for three minutes.  Drain thoroughly and allow to dry, using a tea towel to speed things up if necessary.  It needs to get nice and dry or it will pop and fizz badly when you chargrill it.

While you wait for the broccoli to dry off, open the tin of butter beans, drain and rinse thoroughly.  Set aside.

Lightly grease the frypan with a little oil – just a little, mind.  Keeping the pan quite dry is what enables the chargrilled effect.  Put over a high heat and let it get really hot.

Using tongs, lay out the broccoli (you may need to do this in several batches depending on the size of your fry pan).  Use tongs to turn each floret, allowing it to get chargrill marks.

Whisk together the remaining 2T of olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and chilli flakes.  Add the salad leaves, drained beans, toasted walnut halves and broccoli to your serving bowl.  Tip over the dressing and toss to combine.