Temporary Culinary Obsession: Broccoli Slaw

Growing up, my favorite thing about eating broccoli was the florets' resemblance to tiny little Miyagi-do style bonsai trees. In fact, my parents prompted my brother and I to eat our broccoli by bugging us to 'eat your trees.' Little did they know that my blossomingly imaginative megalomania would never pass up the opportunity to pretend to be a massive, landscape-hating omnivore of a giant. Of course, my tastes have changed. Now my megalomania is fed by contributing to a blog that has OVER 400 visits, at least one of which was likely just Mike Bobis googling himself.


Amazingly, my taste in broccoli has evolved as well. Recently, I've been having a lot of fun with store-bought Broccoli slaw. Though homemade slaw is possible as well, I've found that shoving raw broccoli stalks through the cheese grater or the food processor results in a slaw that lacks the structural integrity of the store-bought julienned matchsticks. However, if you have a mandolin, go to town.

In addition to dressing broccoli slaw and joining it with whatever choice ingredients you prefer to make its eponymous salad, I've been more interested in the textural and nutritional power that this stuff can bring to any of a number of dishes. I recently bought a bag, transfered its contents to a tupperware, and have had great success adding it to a whole range of things:

• Trader Joe's Kung-Pao Chicken bowl. Really, this would work for any type of Asian stir-fry rice/noodle dish. I liked to add it at the end so that it could provide a little crunch, but really it can be added at any point
• Pasta Sauce - Here I liked to add it while on the stove to soften it up a bit. Its neutral flavor eventually blends in and its presence becomes pretty innocuous.
  
• Salads - Kind of speaks for itself
• Sandwiches. The sandwich I made was skirt steak with a simple ginger/asian marinade, thin-sliced on the bias, served open-faced on half a french roll and a foundation of broccoli slaw, then drizzled with sweet chili sauce. Sweet, savory, crunch, delicious. Just make sure you use fresh bread.