Purple sprouting broccoli
Brassica oleracea · Brassica
Top 10 pairings
Purple sprouting broccoli is the hardy, overwintering brassica that, instead of one big dome, throws up a loose crop of many slender stalks each tipped with a small, jewel-purple floret cluster. Sown the previous summer and stood out through the cold, it is cut spear by spear over late winter and early spring — sweeter, more tender and more nutty than ordinary calabrese, and prized in Britain as one of the first real treats of the kitchen garden year.
Picking a good onedrag
Tight and darkYellow and flowering
Firm but palingUse this weekStill good hot — roast or stir-fry
BeadsClosed, brighter green
Cut endDrying, rim going brown
SqueezeFirm, slight give
SmellNeutral
These cues are Broccoli's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
61%
Edible part
151 g · leaves, tough stalk out
248 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
A domestic fridge holds it about 8× longer than the counter.
95–100%
Humidity
Vented
Airflow