A perfect way to use up all that delicious broccoli growing in your garden!

I love love love this salad. I got onto charring broccoli a while ago and haven’t looked back. In my opinion it is THE way to eat broccoli. I was very happy to discover just how well it goes with one of my all time favourite products, Meredith Dairy goat’s cheese. In case it is not already really obvious, I am a massive fan of the stuff – who in Victoria or indeed Australia isn’t? Our family goes through jars of their goat’s cheese a week and my daughter Fig is a huge fan. I spend my days dreaming about new ways to eat this delicious product and I think it’s the perfect addition to this salad. It goes perfectly with the smoky charred broccoli and creamy avocado.

Another great thing about this salad is that it lasts for ages once made up (minus the avocado and pine nuts). I often cook a big batch of this and pretty much eat it for five days straight. I am one of those people that get obsessed with food. I discover a new recipe and that’s pretty much what I live on until I get over it and forget about it for a while. Though this one is pretty hard to get sick of!

The key to this salad, apart for the goat’s cheese, is how you cook the broccoli. It needs to be cooked at a very high heat until the point it’s nearly burnt. This gives it the all-important charred flavor that permeates the rest of the salad. Both my girls love broccoli cooked like this and a simple bowl of this deliciousness is often served as a side with dinner.

Charred Broccoli, Quinoa, Kale and Pine Nut Salad

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Serves: 4 as a main and 8 as a side

Dietary guide: This salad is gluten free. Vegan and FODMAP friendly variation provided – see the end of the recipe.

Ingredients

2/3 cups of white quinoa

2 sock cubes – I use Massel “chicken” as they are FODMAP friendly

3 cups of finely shredded kale (washed and dried)

500g of broccoli (about 2 good sized broccoli florets)

4 spring onions washed

1/3 cup of olive oil (I use the oil from the marinated goat’s cheese)

140g of soft goats cheese marinated in oil

1 avocado diced

100g of pine nuts roasted .

1/4 cup of honey garlic mustard dressing – see recipe below

Method

For the quinoa: Place the quinoa, stock cubes and 4 cups of cold water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Take off the heat when the quinoa is nearly cooked but still retains a little crunch. It will continue cooking after being removed from the heat so you want it to be a little bit undercooked at this point. Drain the quinoa into a strainer and place this quinoa filled strainer on top of the saucepan you just used. Place a lid over the quinoa and let sit for about 20 minutes so the residual heat can dry out the quinoa. Take off the lid, fluff and place in a large bowl to finish cooling.

For the broccoli: Pre-heat a large frying pan on a high heat. Cut the broccoli into bite sized florets. When the pan is hot, pour about 1 tablespoon of the olive oil into the pan and fry batches of the broccoli one at a time. Season them well and make sure not to crowd the pan. Let the broccoli sit for a couple of minutes before you stir or flip them over. This is important as you get a really nice charred flavor and crispy texture. If you turn them too quickly you will end up with stir-fried broccoli, which is not our aim! Cook them for another few minutes, remove and set aside to cool. Wipe down the pan and repeat this process until all the broccoli is cooked. It might seems like a bit of work but this is what makes the salad so good! And the rest is easy.

For the kale: Place the shredded kale in a large bowl and pour in most of the salad dressing – reserve a little as you may not need it all. Gently massage the kale with your hands for a few minutes. This softens the kale and makes it easier to digest.

To assemble: Finely chop the spring onion and add to the cooled quinoa along with the broccoli and kale and mix again. Taste and add more dressing or seasoning if you think it needs it. Place the salad in a large serving bowl or four individual bowls. Top with the goats cheese, avocado and pine nuts. Alternately you can mix the ingredients all together and then serve, but I like to add the cheese, pine nuts and avocado to the top at the last minute. I often cook up large batches of this salad as its keeps well in the fridge but you need to add the avocado and pine nuts just before serving otherwise they go soggy.

Garlic and honey mustard salad dressing

Ingredients

50ml of lemon juice

80ml of oil (I used the oil from the marinated goat’s cheese)

1 tablespoon of honey

1 tablespoon of mustard (I used a smoky mustard)

¼ teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of creamed garlic – see end of the recipe

Method

Make sure the honey is runny, warm in the microwave or a warm water “bath” if they honey is too hard. Place all the ingredients for the dressing in a jar and shake well. Taste and adjust to your liking.

How to make creamed garlic: The reason I use creamed garlic instead of chopped up or minced garlic, when a recipe calls for raw garlic is that this method reduces the heat and intensity of raw garlic. This means I can use more garlic and get more garlic flavor into it without it being quite as full on. To cream garlic place 2 cloves of nice and fresh peeled garlic in a mortar. Add 1 very generous teaspoon of nice quality salt and grind up with the pestle. It might sound like a lot of salt but the garlic helps to retard its saltiness. Once its pretty smooshed up and like a rough paste, add two teaspoons of olive oil and continue grinding and mixing until you have a nice nearly smooth paste. It’s now ready to use. It’s best used in the first couple of hours but you can cover it with oil and keep it for a day if you need to. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can do this on a chopping board using the back of a metal spoon. It works the same, but will just test you patience a bit more!

Vegan variation: Omit the goat’s cheese and add a vegan soft cheese if you like. It goes really well with my cashew truffle cream recipe. Despite me going on about how much I love the cheese in this recipe, it still tastes delicious without it! Replace the honey in the dressing with maple syrup.

FODMAP friendly variation: Use the green part of the spring onion only and remove most of the broccoli stalk before cooking if you don’t tolerate them well. Replace the creamed garlic in the dressing with 1 teaspoon of garlic oil. The honey per serve is likely within the recommended safe guidelines but replace it with sugar if you don’t tolerate honey well.