Any fresh vegetable bought from a store should be washed to remove contaminates that it picked up during shipping, handling or storage.
With broccoli, I note that running water over the top doesn’t seem to do much. I think it must be water repellant, because the water just kind of runs off. So I always turn it upside down and run the water through the florets.
BTW, I read this thread while eating a salad that contained broccoli.
I thought you were supposed to eat the florets, but my family prefers the stems. If they are really big and have tough skin I peel them.
I usually cook it, and it usually looked pretty clean. So I don’t usually wash it. I might run it under the tap for a moment, just because I’m in the habit of cleaning vegetables. But I’m not taking the exercise seriously or anything.
If I at it raw I’d wash it more carefully. But if I consume some cooked bug that I didn’t see, I don’t really care.
Thirty minutes of cooking in a stew will turn broccoli to mush.
Steam the sliced stems and florets for 4-5 minutes depending on thickness, give them a quick rinse if you’re not going to be adding them to the big pot right away. and add them to the stew in the last minute or two of cooking. Total cooking time in steam or hot liquids shouldn’t be more than 7 minutes.
JMO, but I eat broccoli right out of the colander after about 5 minutes of steaming, just a tiny bit of salt is all it needs. The same with asparagus.
Broccoli is a noble vegetable. Anything George W Bush hated so much is worthy of respect.
I am an avid gardener and have grown most of the common vegetables. One year I tried cauliflower and broccoli. Got big beautiful plants. They get pretty big and take up almost a square yard of space.
So the first time I tried cooking some broccoli I cut it up, with stems and tops and was going to lightly boil it. I cleaned it, washed as best as I thought fit.
Then all of these little green caterpillars/worms, the exact same color as the broccoli, came floating to the top of the water!
First and last time I grew it. Now I just buy it in the produce section of the store. I no longer care if they have used pesticides or chemicals to get rid of the worms.
Fake news. It was George HW Bush that hated broccoli.
As for washing it, I buy it frozen in a bag, and just assume that it was squeaky clean before it was packaged. As someone mentioned above, I’m not dead yet.
AAAACCKK!
My apologies, one Bush looks pretty much like another at my age. And The Shrub probably inherited his sire’s broccoli-hating genes. It would explain a lot.
Memo to self - check Wikipedia before posting, especially when beating around the Bushes.