Currabinny Cooks: Quick stir-fry and simple curry among tasty dinner recipes
Currabinny cooks
Romanesco is a vegetable which is breathtaking in its intricate, geometric form. Its mesmerising beauty is almost unbelievable in something organic or ‘of nature’. It is however a perfect example of a natural fractal, whereby its form is replicated over and over in a logarithmic spiral, so each bud is composed of smaller perfectly replicated buds.
In other words the buds form a detailed pattern that repeats itself ad infinitum. Since a vegetable cannot go on forever it is what a mathematician would call an approximate fractal. If you study a head of Romanesco up close you will notice a spiral emanating from the centre point from which the buds descend down getting larger and larger. This is a fibonacci spiral, a series of arcs whose radii follow the fibonacci sequence.
If anyone remembers from school, a fibonacci sequence is a numerical sequence where each number equals the sum of the previous two numbers. In the case of a romanesco, if you count the number of spirals in one direction and then count the number in the other direction, they will be without fail, consecutive fibonacci numbers. Fascinating right?
Beyond aesthetics, beyond mathematics, I always thought of the romanesco as just a very fancy head of broccoli. It is only recently, now that I’ve given it my full attention, that I have discovered how wrong that assertion is.
Just like broccoli and cauliflower, romanesco is essentially an edible flower that we eat as a vegetable. It is also a member of the formidable brassica family of vegetables which include a wide array of common vegetables from kale to kohlrabi.
In terms of its flavour, it does have some similarities to both broccoli and cauliflower, but it is perhaps more interesting. There is a definite nuttiness that you don’t get with the other flowering brassicas, a complex creaminess along with the more obvious grassy, earthiness. It is also slightly less bitter than broccoli so there is more of an opportunity to create a delicious contrast with romanesco and very salty, bitter, sharp flavours.
Romanesco has a texture which is delightfully crunchier than the other two. Use it in exactly the same way as you would a broccoli, except refrain from blitzing it or even dicing it into small chunks.
The buds are far too beautiful for this. keep them intact by roasting them, frying them or grilling them. You can even eat them raw.
This punchy recipe was given to us (via voice note) by die-hard romanesco lover, Andrea Horan, Queen of South William Street and owner of Saoirse Ronan's favourite nail bar in Dublin, Tropical Popical.
This recipe might seem superficially Asian because of the use of a wok but the capers add a more Mediterranean feel. The wok is just a great tool for getting fast, direct heat to your ingredients. Andrea swears by using a few lashes of ‘maggi seasoning’ which can be found in most Asian or Middle Eastern food stores. If you can’t source this, just use soy sauce.
- 1/2 head of Romanesco, stalk removed, cut or broken into individual florets
- 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced very thinly
- 1 red chilli, deseeded and sliced thinly
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce or maggi seasoning
- 1-2 tablespoons of capers
- A small pinch of sea salt
- Freshly cracked black pepper
Heat the olive oil in a wok over medium high heat, add the florets of romanesco and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and chilli and fry for another 1-2 minutes.
Add the soy sauce, lemon juice, capers, salt and pepper, frying for a final 2 minutes. The romanesco should be tender, but still with a good crunch.
Serve in a bowl as a side dish.
This salad is proof that you don’t need to cook romanesco for it to be utterly delectable. Eating it raw like this gives you a wonderfully verdant, fresh flavour which works amazing with the zesty lemon and salty parmesan.
- 300g kale, washed, destalked
- 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- Juice and zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
- 1/2 head of romanesco, stalk discarded, buds broken into small pieces
- 30g pine nuts
- 40g parmesan, shaved
- Sea salt and freshly crack black pepper
Chop the kale up and place in a bowl with a good pinch of sea salt, rubbing the leaves a bit with your hands for a minute or two. Add into the bowl, the lemon juice, zest and a good crack of black pepper, mixing it into the kale leaves. Add the romanesco buds.
Toast the pinenuts on a dry hot pan until slightly browned but of course not burned.
Serve the salad with the pine nuts scattered through and the parmesan shaved on top.
This is a very simple, yet delicious curry which is bursting with flavours and textures. Do not over cook the vegetables in this dish, you really want the wonderful crunch of the romanesco, green beans and sugarsnaps.
- 1 onion, peeled, cut into thick slices
- 1 green chilli, deseeded, finely diced
- 1 thumb of ginger, peeled and cut into very thin little matchsticks
- 1 can of coconut milk (400ml)
- 1/2 head romanesco, de-stalked, broken into individual florets
- 2 tablespoons of rapeseed or olive oil
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric
- 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon of ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon of ground ginger
- 600ml of vegetable stock
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of tamarind paste
- 100g green beans
- 150g sugar snaps
- Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
- Rice to serve
In a large frying pan, heat the oil over a medium high heat and then add the sliced onion, season and leave to soften for a minute or two before adding the chilli and ginger. Cook for a mother minute or two and then add the turmeric, cumin, ground coriander and ground ginger, stirring the spices around the pan, into the oil and onion mixture. After a minute, the pan should be very fragrant. Add the coconut milk, stock, sugar and tamarind paste. Stir to combine.
Bring to the boil and then add the broccoli. Cook for around 10 minutes at a simmer and then add the green beans and the sugar snaps. Cook for another 5 minutes until all the ingredients are cooked through but still have a nice bite to them.
Serve with some nice basmati or jasmine rice and some chopped coriander to garnish.
