Broccoli and Sweet Potato

I do a lot of browsing of food porn on the internet, helped by various bloggers and StumbleUpon, and I like to bookmark likely-looking recipes with the result that my Firefox bookmarks menu scrolls to about two screen-heights.

We have a broccoli in the fridge from the last veg box and rather than doing the broccoli and chickpea burgers again (delicious as they are, we have had them several times since I discovered the recipe) I decided to try out this gem from the Amateur Gourmet's archives.

AG did talk this up a bit, so is it the best broccoli of your life?

I did adapt the quantities a bit to what I had in stock, so here goes.  Feel free to compare to the original version and let me know what you think.

First pre-heat the oven to 220C.  I think the Essex tendency of celebrity chef refers to this as bangin' hot - it's definitely smokin' hot, even though I cleaned the oven last week.

Take one head of broccoli and cut it up into florets.  Wash and dry, then put them into a baking tray.  Pour a generous splash of olive oil over, and salt and pepper.  I couldn't resist adding a knob of butter (it does cope with high temperatures better than plain olive oil, so there is science here as well as greed).

Pop that in the oven, then peel a sweet potato and chop it into chunks.  Add it to the baking tray, scooch everything around, and turn it over with a spatula or spoon so that everything gets covered in melted butter and oil.  Return the baking tray to the oven and cook everything for a total of 30 minutes (the broccoli getting the full 30 and the sweet potato about 25).

Grate up a generous chunk of parmesan cheese and at the end of the cooking time sprinkle it all over, along with a squirt of lemon juice, and return to the oven for just one more minute.

At first glance...  it's a plate of roasted vegetables, perhaps not something to get too excited about.  But to taste... well, I've had roast sweet potatoes before, but this was a new way of cooking broccoli to me and it was bloody delicious - broccoli flavour with a lovely roast, crispy edge.  It might have been even nicer if the sweet potato had had longer and gone a bit crispy too.

Just say no to soggy, boiled vegetables!  I want to roast everything now.