The Surprising Raw Broccoli Salad inspired by Gordon Ramsay

Don’t be scared and shout “Broccoli?! Eeewh!” or worse “Raw Broccoli?!?! Double Eeewh!!”. This recipe that I made tonight was inspired by Chef Gordon Ramsay. I simply love this chef, his cuisine, his rigor and his concepts in both his cooking and the way he leads his overall business. My husband and I have been to one of his many restaurants in London in the end of 2014, and had an amazing dinner! But there was one side of him that I didn’t know back then until a few days ago. It’s Gordon Ramsay himself sharing time and cooking with his family, and the show that is screening this – Gordon Ramsay’s Home cooking – has just begun to be broadcast in France (so I’m happy-happy!).

According to Gordon Ramsay, home cooking should be easy. Families should be able to eat healthy food and not turn cooking into a hassle. So while I was just finding out about this show, Gordon-on-TV came up with this surprising recipe that is so quick to make, so healthy, so full of vitamins, crunchiness, flavors and… well, inspiration! It only counts 4 ingredients that are: broccoli, shallots, chopped almonds and black currants. Don’t be put off by the strange combination, I don’t know how but every ingredient fits so nicely together, you simply have to trust Chef Ramsay on this! The salad dressing is as simple as healthy, and totally oil-free. I’m in love with this recipe. But unfortunately, I had to make a few changes to this original recipe, I hope Gordon will forgive me (this might take some time though, I don’t think he will ever read about my recipe). I thought I had almonds in my pantry, but only found pine nuts. Also, I thought I knew the translation into French of “currants” but I didn’t, and I don’t know why but I didn’t reach at my dictionary and ended up deciding in my head that currants were a type of raisins. Whoops-a-Daisies!

The broccoli usually is consumed cooked, but here we keep it raw, and it’s very tasty, I loved it. I didn’t even know before today that broccoli could be eaten raw, like cauliflower basically. Please forgive my ignorance. My excuse is that I have not been a broccoli lover until I went and lived in China, though I’ve never eaten it raw even over there (I want to add “especially over there”). In China, I have learned to totally love this vegetable that I used to hate as a kid, sometimes when the cooking or the sauce is right then something you disliked turns into something you find interesting or even like-able! For that matter, I want to include that post in the monthly link up party Our Growing Edge. This event aims to connect food bloggers and inspire us to try new things. This month is hosted by Jordan at Vermilion Red, under the theme Flavours you’ve grown to love. 

In this recipe, we use the nice and tasty part of the broccoli, the flowers. We leave the stems aside because they are slightly bitter, but we don’t throw them away because we (you and me) are strongly against wasting food. We keep them for tomorrow because we already plan to make another delicious recipe only with the stems of this broccoli (and other veggies), probably a new version of my recent successful trial of Japanese Ramen noodles soup, have you read about it yet? If you prefer making another salad with the stems instead of having a warm dish, then I suggest you visit Angela Coleby’s Divalicious Blog and the recipe included in the link. Now the shallots, thinly minced, are raw too (yep, everything raw, can it be easier?). And we’re going with pine nuts and raisins – OMG, guys, pray for me! The salad dressing is made of 1 plain yogurt combined with a bit of cider vinegar (but I used white alcohol vinegar instead), and black and pink crushed pepper. With the provided quantities of the recipe, you can serve 2 people if that’s a main dish for a light dinner, otherwise it can serve 6 people as a side dish.

 

INGREDIENTS (serves 2 to 6)

• 1 broccoli head
• 2 to 3 shallots
• a handful of pine nuts
• a handful of raisins
• salt
• 1 plain yogurt
• 2 tbsp of white alcohol vinegar
• black and pink pepper, crushed

 

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat up a small bowl of water in the micro-wave oven. Dip the raisins about 30 minutes so they can get softer while you start preparing the rest of the recipe.
2. Cut the broccoli just below the flowers, put the flowers in a large salad bowl and keep the stems aside for tomorrow’s dinner (if you’re not following my suggestion from the above text, I’m sure you’ll find something else to cook with the stems!).
3. Thinly mince the shallots and add to the broccoli.
4. Sprinkle some salt.
5. Throw the pine nuts and the raisins.
6. In a small bowl, prepare the salad dressing by combining the yogurt, the crushed peppers and the white alcohol vinegar.
7. Gently combine the dressing in the salad, being cautious not to over-move around the broccoli flowers that are rather fragile.
8. Serve immediately.

Created and Written by Sophie Rebibo-Halimi, © 2016 All Rights Reserved.