FOOD : Enviable Green : Broccoli Is No Longer Limited to Mere Side-Dish Status

EVER NOTICED HOW often broccoli appears on menus today? If it isn’t pureed or steamed and served as a vegetable, it turns up in soups or pasta dishes or as a raw appetizer with a dip. Strong in flavor and glorious in color, this deep-green vegetable has usurped the place on American tables that used to be occupied by the ubiquitous pea, perhaps because broccoli really is considerably more flexible in its uses. And possibly simply because it’s a vegetable that both looks and tastes good.

Broccoli’s compact flowerets are great favorites at salad bars, and a brief perusal of the prepared dishes filling deli cases everywhere will also show a profusion of this crunchy favorite as an ingredient in both hot and cold offerings. In fact, that’s where the prototype for the following salad recipe turned up--at the Gourmet Grocery, a deli in Kansas City. This is not a Midwestern recipe, however; the deli’s owners admitted they had discovered it in the deep South. Whatever its origins, this is an unlikely, surprisingly good salad combination, and it will delight broccoli lovers wherever they are--even here in California, the state that produces more broccoli than any other state in the union.

K.C. DELI BROCCOLI

SALAD 4 cups broccoli flowerets 1/2 cup mayonnaise-type salad dressing cup milk 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 teaspoons honey 1/2 cup raisins 1/2 cup salted peanuts Lettuce leaves Blanch broccoli in boiling salted water about 30 seconds. Drain and cover immediately with cold water. Drain again and chill in refrigerator, covered.

Combine salad dressing, milk, lemon juice and honey, blending well. Chill. At serving time, add raisins and peanuts to dressing and toss with broccoli or serve on side. Serve on lettuce leaves. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Photographed by Susan Marie Anderson / Food styled by Norman Stewart / Props styled by Brian J. Toffoli / Plates courtesy of the Pavilion at Tanner Market, Pasadena / Lilacs courtesy of Milo Bixby, San Marino