Green Sprouting Broccolini

When you find a crop or variety that likes your garden conditions, it makes food gardening look soooo easy. This is Green Sprouting Broccoli. I think it was originally Italian Green Sprouting, or perhaps Green Sprouting Calabrese? But I’ve been saving seed from the best plants for enough years that I think it has now become its own landrace.

It has no central head at all, just hundreds and thousands of these little broccolini heads. We went away for three days, and came back to just over 13 kilos of it, from half a dozen plants. And there will be nearly this much again tomorrow, and the next day, and, if I keep picking them to prevent them successfully flowering and setting seed, all the way through from late June to late September most years. I figure the yield is in the range of 50kg per plant.

I plant seed in early autumn, select the strongest ten or so seedlings to pot up, then put the rest in recycled takeaway coffee cups out on the footpath as giveaways for neighbours. In mid-autumn, when the seedlings are 10 to 12 cm tall, I select the strongest half a dozen to plant out and again put the extras out on the footpath as giveaways. In late June they will start bearing, and if I pick every one and don’t let them flower, I can keep harvesting all winter and into early spring.

Then I let them flower and the bees feast for a few weeks before the cabbage moths arrrive. I harvest and save seed from the most successful plants then feed the rest – seeds and leaves and cabbage moth caterpillars and all – to the chooks, then harvest them again as golden yolked eggs.

We eat broccolini every day. As cheesy broccoli omelette or broccoli with hollandaise for breakfast, as broccoli tempura or broccoli quiches for parties. Raw broccoli in salads and lightly steamed broccoli with sesame oil, lemon juice and toasted sesame seeds in the lunch box.  Broccoli in noodle stir fries, and in pasta or steamed with butter and lemon juice and garlic for dinner.

But lately our favourite way to eat broccolini is as chips. Yes, I know it sounds a bit strange, but even the picky eight year old agrees that broccolini heads like these, leaves and stems and flower heads and all, make the best chips. A bit like kale chips but better.

The Recipe: Very simply, it is just broccolini, lightly sprinkled with olive oil and salt, massaged a little so the leaves are all oiled, then roasted for about ten minutes in a medium oven (around 180°C fan forced or 200°C otherwise) till crisp. You need the small heads and thinner stems of broccolini (like the picture below) for this, not broccoli. Leave the leaves on. The only trick is not to crowd the pan too much, which is difficult because we can easily enjoy a roasting pan full between two of us, just as a snack.