My neighbour Sharon was having no luck growing broccoli. So I gave up growing broccoli before I even started. If she couldn’t, I wouldn’t. Then she gave me six little plants, something called, mysteriously, aztec broccoli. It’s not actually broccoli, she told me. The plot thickened. Not being the kind of horticulturist who likes to get bogged down in details, I bunged them in the ground and hoped for the best. Before I knew it, they were knee, waist and then head high. A jungle was taking shape. It was time to start eating it.
It’s always nice to come across something not that many people seem to know about. I got shakes of the head from a friend with a marvellous allotment in York; a seed supplier from Suffolk I sat next to on a train to Swansea and a woman who won nearly every prize at a horticultural society event to which I’d been invited to give out trophies. I was starting to wonder if this was some kind of hoax.
It turns out, I read somewhere or other, that aztec broccoli is known as huauzontle in Mexico and as Chenopodium nuttalliae in Latin. It’s a Mexican native plant from the goosefoot family, related to quinoa and amaranth. Very little of which meant anything to me, but I read on to find out it is regarded by some as a superfood and is all edible, including its broccoli-like flower shoots.
Before these shoots emerged I just tore off some leaves, stalks and all, gave them a wash and cooked it like spinach. Nice. Tastes a bit like spinach but retains more texture. In a similar way to spinach, a lot of it yields remarkably little. A metre of bush cooked down to one panful. No matter – 2 metres of bush grows back in a matter of days. When it came to the flowery shoots, I got embroiled in a very complicated recipe for a traditional Mexican thing called tortitas de huauzontle, where the blanched shoots are stuffed with cheese, coated in batter, and then fried. This proved too much for me, so I gave up and just cooked the broccoli-like shoots like, well, broccoli.
In a matter of months I’ve become an enthusiast for the stuff, even possibly a bit of a bore. I keep forcing armfuls of it on people. I gave one friend some to take home and cook for his tea and I’ve not heard from him since. But if you do fancy a try, bring a large van round to mine and I’ll happily give you enough to make at least one dinner.
• Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist
