Chopping Broccoli
A Few Useful Tips On Chopping Broccoli
There are a few methods for chopping broccoli, and you can start with the most simplistic methods until you have mastered the art of this culinary skill. In some soup and sauce recipes, chopping broccoli stalks into very fine pieces which can be strained is necessary, but for the most part you will basically want to separate the flowers from the tougher and less flavorful stem area. There is an area on the stalk where it begins to stem out, heading up the plume of tasty flowerets that we have come to love so much. We may even need them, actually, as scientists have proven that broccoli can help to prevent and fight cancer cells within the human body.
The first and most important step to chopping broccoli is your safety. Use a textured cutting board, not a flat and slippery one. You will need to rinse the broccoli extremely well before cooking or eating it, as sand, dirt, and grit can easily become lodged in the tender flowerets and are very unpleasant when chomped in to. Once this is done, with extremely cold water, you will begin the process of chopping broccoli. Starting at the area of the stalk where the stems begin to branch out into flowerets, cut downward toward your cutting board, away from your body and spare hand.
Depending on what you intend to do with the vegetable, you will begin chopping broccoli flowerets off of the bulk head with as little or as much stem as you prefer. When you’re preparing it for a fresh snack, it is sometimes much easier to leave a good amount of stem for an easy, ready made handle. For steaming, most people prefer to leave the broccoli in larger chunks, as this helps it to retain full color, flavor, and texture while undergoing the heating process. Whichever eating method you intend to employ for this tasty green, you will want to make sure that you have saved the very best of it.
Once you have cut the bulk of the stalk off of your broccoli, you will want to start pulling the pieces apart according to the size that you are looking for. Once you have your individual pieces laid out, you can begin chopping broccoli stems up to the base of each floweret. Remember to keep your pieces larger if you intend to boil them as well, because the loss of nutrients and flavor is much more dominant with this type of cooking. A touch of butter or olive oil on your freshly steamed or boiled broccoli can set it off just right; though eating it plain is rather delectable in and of itself.