Steamed Bimi® broccoli with olive butter
Melting a pre-made ‘compound’ butter over your steamed or blanched Bimi® broccoli is a really quick and easy way to complement the brassica and add some flavour in preparation for a celebratory meal. Pitted marinated olives make the process of adding loads of flavour even simpler. The olives on their own are a good match for lamb, while the marinades they come in tend to be packed with complementary ingredients too, such as herbes de Provence, harissa, pimento and garlic, pesto, or tomato and basil.
This recipe makes more butter than you will need for just this side dish. You can store the butter in a sealed tub in the fridge for 5 or 6 days to use on another dish you think it would pair well with. Better still, if you roll the butter into a sausage shape (as instructed below) and freeze, it’s easy to cut a disk of flavoured butter off whenever you next fancy Bimi® broccoli with the same dressing. An olive butter is also great melted over pan-fried or steamed fish, beef steaks or pork or lamb chops.”
Specifications
Prep
10 minutes
Cook
5 minutes
Serves
6
Method
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Put the olives and any residual marinade and the pepper into a food processor and pulse, then blitz until finely chopped. If you don’t have a food processor you could do this by hand.
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Transfer the butter (once soft and at room temperature) to a mixing bowl, add the olives and mash them into the butter using the back of a fork. Once relatively well combined, use a silicon spatula or wooden spoon to beat the butter, ensuring the olives are evenly mixed through.
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Scoop the butter out of the bowl onto a mound in the middle of a sheet of greaseproof paper. Take the bottom left edge of the paper and fold over the butter to match the top right edge of the paper.
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Use the paper to help you pull the butter back towards you to form a tight cylinder/sausage shape. Then, roll the cylinder and twist the ends of the paper. Refrigerate or freeze.
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When ready to eat, prepare a steamer cooker (you will need 2 or 3 tiers for this quantity of Bimi® broccoli) or saucepan of boiling water. Steam for 5 minutes, or blanch for 3 minutes, so it is a vibrant green and still has a little crunch.
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Meanwhile, cut off 50-60g of the olive butter in thin slices. Put half the slices at the bottom of a mixing bowl. Transfer the steamed Bimi® broccoli to the bowl. Dot the rest of the butter in and around and after 30 seconds of melting, gently shuffle the bowl so all the Bimi® broccoli is coated with buttery olive seasoning. Tip onto a serving platter, ensuring the olives and now melted butter are scraped out on top.
