Broccoli Salad Recipe

Overflowing with broccoli or just looking for healthy bites? Check out this Broccoli salad recipe and let the taste buds ride!

Illusions are part of our everyday life. We are a sucker for illusions even if we know that we are just being played fool. Some of us gets intrigued by not believing what our eyes see while others just accept the magic and find delight going with the flow.

Sure, nowadays we know that magic is just collection of tricks that relies on the lack of our complete attention, but we still fall for it.

Apparently, our brain can only operate at a peak speed of measly 200 Hz which means we can hold about 7 ±2 concepts in our working memory at the same time. Moreover, if the inputs are presented as choices, processing the information takes up extra time, elongating the whole process.

It also means, that although we perceive the world as a whole, due to the limited bandwidth, our brain needs time to construct it piece by piece. It takes about 15 seconds to fully build the world we see.

This means that the actual surroundings we see, even right now reading this text, is from 15 seconds ago. The reason, we don’t get hit by a car, eaten by something while continuously being late from our own surroundings, is because our brain is particularly good at building the world around us from the patches it has already processed.

This is why optical illusions are so mind sizzling when we realize that what we see, it is far from the reality. Our brain just tries to make sense of the world the best it can, working with a highly underpowered graphical processing unit (GPU).

So, if someone wants to do something without us noticing it, all it takes is, filling that 200hz of attention span with things that are taxing and hard to process.

Deceit is in the toolbox of many parents who try introducing veggies to their kids life or on a journey for a leaner life. In fact, the culinary world is full of deceiving dishes, just think about pretzel salad, apple roses or any keto meal that tries to mimic some tasty dish.

As it could be expected, deceiving food names only happens when we try to make something better than it really is, and barely the other way around.

We never make a layered cake then name it brussels sprouts or broccoli cake just because we used a green frosting to fill or cover it. Except, of course, if we want to keep the whole thing for ourselves.

After all, who would believe that we’ve made a cake from zucchini, cinnamon rolls from cheese or pizza from eggplant?

So, we try to sell subpar dished to our loved ones or our tastebuds by diverting our attention from the fact that those things are made from things we aren’t really into. Curiously though, broccoli salad is far from that.

Broccoli salad is exactly what it sounds like. A salad made of broccoli and a lot of other things that makes broccoli bearable. In fact, we could call broccoli salad to cheese and nuts salad but that would alienate the health conscious people who are here for the broccoli.

The good thing about broccoli salad is that it has more to it than it sounds.

Those who like broccoli will eat it anyway while those who are here for their health only, can divert their attention using the fun bits to miraculously make the green bits disappear like they were never on the plate.

Ingredients

1 head / 500g Broccoli (makes 250g florets)
⅓ cup / 50g Almonds
¼ cup / 30g Sunflower seed
¼ / 30g Pumpkin seed
1 piece / 125g Red onions
1 cup / 200g Cheese (cubed)
2 tablespoons / 30ml Extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons / 30g Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon / 15g Vinegar
½ teaspoon / 1g Paprika
½ teaspoon / 2.5g Salt
3 tablespoons / 45g Sour cream (optional)
½ teaspoon / 3g Sesame seed

How to make Broccoli salad

Broccoli can be prepared in many ways with microwaving, steaming being the most nutritious while stir-frying probably the tastiest. Sure we can just have them raw too. Cut the broccoli into roughly equal sized florets then prepare them to taste. Check out: How to make broccoli
Roast the almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds. If we prepare broccoli in the oven then the whole thing can be done together otherwise use a tablespoon of oil for better heat distribution on the seeds.
Once the seeds get a golden brown colour, take them off heat and let them cool somewhat before adding them to the salad.
Slice the onions, cube the cheese then add the florets and cooled down seeds into a big bowl.
Mix extra virgin olive oil, Dijon mustard, paprika and salt. Add sour cream too for less intense, creamier flavor. Drizzle dressing at serving then sprinkle with sesame seeds.