بروکلی

What it means

بروکلی (brokoli) is broccoli, the dark green cruciferous vegetable with dense florets. The word is a direct borrowing from Italian broccoli (plural of broccolo, meaning a sprouting shoot of a cabbage), which entered Persian during the twentieth century as supermarkets in Iran began stocking commercially grown European vegetables. A close relative in the same vegetable family is گل‌کلم (gol-e kalam), cauliflower.

How to use it

• بروکلی خریدی؟ (brokoli kharidi?) “Did you buy broccoli?”
• بروکلی رو بخار پز کن. (brokoli ro bakhâr-paz kon.) “Steam the broccoli.”
• این سوپ بروکلی خیلی خوشمزه‌ست. (in sup-e brokoli kheyli khoshmaze-st.) “This broccoli soup is really tasty.”
• از بروکلی خوشم نمیاد. (az brokoli khosham nemiyâd.) “I don’t like broccoli.”

Cultural note

Broccoli is a relatively recent addition to the Iranian kitchen. It became widely available in urban supermarkets from the 1990s onward and is now used in soups, stir-fries, and pasta dishes influenced by European and Persian-diaspora cooking. In traditional Persian cuisine the role of green vegetables belongs more to herbs such as جعفری (ja’fari, parsley) and گشنیز (geshniz, coriander), but younger cooks in Tehran and abroad have made brokoli a regular presence at the dinner table.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab