Pasta con le Cime di Rapa (Pasta with Broccoli Rabe)
Preparation time: 15–20 minutes
Serves 4
- One bunch broccoli rabe
- One 1-lb. package short pasta, such as penne, orecchiette, fusilli, rotini or rigatoni
- Rivers of extra-virgin olive oil
- Several cloves of garlic
- Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)
- Mountains of hard cheese (parmigiano, pecorino, grana, etc.), grated
- Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
- Breadcrumbs, toasted, to taste (optional)
Put a large pot of heavily salted water on to boil. Rinse the broccoli rabe and cut off the harder, thicker portions of the stem, keeping the leaves and florets. Cut the greens crosswise into short ribbons a half inch to an inch wide. When the water boils, dump in the greens and let them cook at a slow boil for about two minutes. Empty in the box of pasta and cook until pasta is barely al dente.
Meanwhile, crush or finely chop the garlic. Lightly sauté in olive oil with the red pepper flakes until the garlic’s natural flavors are released, or until it just begins to change color. (Do not let the garlic brown or it will become bitter.)
As soon as the pasta is done, drain and mix in the garlic, red pepper and olive oil, along with a few handfuls of cheese and the salt and pepper. Add more olive oil and cheese until the pasta is nicely coated. Serve with yet more cheese (and toasted breadcrumbs, if desired).
Options and variations:
(Variations I’ve tried are marked with an asterisk. The rest are suggestions to be followed at your own risk.)
For more body, add chopped-up broccoli florets with the rabe.*
For a more pungent taste, replace some of the rabe with mustard greens or Swiss chard. For a peppery note, try arugula.
For some crunch, try adding raw or just-blanched broccoli to the finished dish.
Flat parsley might go well here, chopped fine and then added at the end.
Instead of the garlic-pepper sauce, Craig suggests making a white wine sauce: sauté the garlic in butter, add white wine and then reduce over low heat.
Feel free to add your own suggestions/variations in the comments!
March 17th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
YUM!
March 17th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
iawtc
March 18th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Is “mountains” really a technical cooking term?
March 18th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Basically, there is almost no way to have too much cheese in this dish. The technical term for that amount of cheese is “mountain.” :D
March 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Well, I tried the following loose variation:
A sauce of green onions, garlic, butter, vegetable soup base, red pepper flakes and white wine (about 3/4 of a bottle), cooked down until thick; a large bunch of arugula, chopped/torn and added in stages to the sauce; one small blood orange, half added with the arugula, half used as garnish; spaghetti; and salt, freshly ground pepper and freshly grated parmigiano and pecorino.
In some ways it was delicious, but it needs a lot of tweaking. I think I’m going to try it again with spinach in the sauce and arugula as garnish; not so much vegetable soup base and red pepper (it came out quite salty and spicy); and blood orange juice in the sauce instead of blood orange chunks.