Using the Whole Broccoli – Tortellini

Once you bite into one of these pockets of flavor and the broccoli bursts from the center, you’ll sing the praises of broccoli stalks and wonder how you ever could have discounted them to begin with.
By Carrie King

It’s no secret that we humans are creatures of habit, so, it makes sense that we would form habits in the kitchen too. We might tend to buy the same ingredients, or rely on the same dull knife because it’s our favorite, or cook a rotating selection of meals because they’re what we know best. We become so used to certain ways of eating and cooking that it becomes mechanical. Certain ingredients are designated for specific tastes and flavors and dishes – and kind of pigeonholed – because it’s what we’ve always done.

We also have very specific ideas about what parts of a vegetable or animal, for that matter, are edible and tasty. It’s true that in recent years, eating offal, or the lesser used cuts of an animal, has become more ‘fashionable’ in the food world and so people have started to become more accepting of a bit of kidney or liver or tongue. But, one food group that still seems to be under-considered, in this cook’s opinion, is the lesser-used cuts of vegetables.

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What are the lesser-used cuts of veggies you ask? Well, broccoli stalks are a prime example. How many perfectly edible, tasty broccoli stalks are discarded every single day in kitchens all over the country? I don’t know how the broccoli stalks got such a bad wrap that everyone throws them out. I guess it might be the rather off-putting prickly outside of the stalk – but underneath that hard layer lies tender broccoli meat that tastes exactly like, well, broccoli.

It’s true that in an effort to move towards conscientious eating and sustainable tables that one of our biggest focal points should be food origins and making good choices about the food we purchase – where it comes from, how it was grown or raised, etc. But, another behavior to examine is what food we waste once we actually get it into our kitchens. You wouldn’t throw away half of a perfectly good head of broccoli right? That’s kind of what we do when we throw away the stalks.

You need only trim the end and outer layer of the broccoli stalk to have, depending on the size of the broccoli, almost doubled the amount of broccoli you have to work with for your dish. You can treat the flesh from the stalk the same way you would treat the rest of the veggie – dice it, slice it, sauté it, eat it raw in a salad. Whatever your broccoli-loving heart desires.

I used the stalks and the florets for homemade tortellini. In this case, using the stalks really paid off in that it added significant body to the filling. Pureeing fresh veggies and transforming them into a stuffing for pasta is also a great way to sneak some extra veggies into your diet. Once you bite into one of these pockets of flavor and the broccoli bursts from the center, you’ll sing the praises of broccoli stalks and wonder how you ever could have discounted them to begin with.