Monthly Archives: October 2009

Stir-fried chilli broccoli with seared polenta

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Stir-fried chilli broccoli with seared polenta

Ingredients

For the seared polenta
100g/3½oz quick-cook polenta, cooked with water or stock according to packet instructions
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
For the broccoli
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, sliced
½ red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
3 stalks purple sprouting broccoli, trimmed
½ lemon, juice only
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. For the seared polenta, place the cooked polenta into a bowl and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
2. Lightly oil a small square dish and press the polenta into the dish. Leave to cool – it will form a solid cake.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan, slice wedges of the polenta from the dish and fry, turning frequently, until crisp and golden-brown on all sides.
4. For the stir-fried chilli broccoli, heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan, add the garlic and chilli and stir fry for one minute.
5. Add the purple sprouting broccoli and stir fry for 3-4 minutes, or until the broccoli is tender.
6. Add the lemon juice and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
7. To serve, place the broccoli onto a plate with the seared polenta alongside.

Cauliflower Provencale

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Cauliflower Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

  1. 1

    Boil or (preferably) steam Cauliflower until barely done- still slightly crunchy.

  2. 2

    In a separate pan fry finely chopped onion on medium heat for 4 or 5 minutes adding minced or finely chopped Garlic halfway through.

  3. 3

    When soft but not brown add tomato (do not break up too much)& other ingredients.

  4. 4

    simmer gently for 3 or 4 minutes.

  5. 5

    Adjust seasoning.

  6. 6

    Mix Cauliflower and sauce and serve.

When appending to a string in Ruby use the << method instead of +=

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When appending to a string in Ruby use the << method instead of +=

If you come from another language, you might be tempted to use the += operator when appending to a string.

  1. my_str = “Marco ”
  2. my_str += “Polo”

It works… but there is a better way to do it : the « method.

  1. my_str = “Marco ”
  2. my_str « “Polo”

#UPDATE
I have removed my initial claim about operator precedence as it isn’t really accurate. There is a much better reason to use « instead of += when appending to a string… something I didn’t even realize (Thanks to Gregory). += will create a new String instance and will assign it to your left object. On the other hand, « will append the new string directly into your already existing left object. One could argue that += is only different than « and not better, but to me « is what you’ll want to use 99% of the time (if not 100%) when appending to a String. I have yet to see a real case where one would want to “lose” it’s existing String instance just to get a new one containing the exact same value.

You can also use the « method with arrays :

  1. [1,2,3] « 4 #gives [1,2,3,4]

Be careful however when using « with Fixnum/Bignum instances. With these objects, the « method will shift the bits of your integer to the left. If you want to do a summation (append style that is), you will have to use +=