Orecchiette Pasta with Cauliflower, Bitter Greens, Olives, and Chile
Orecchiette, which means “little ears”, are a great pasta shape for vegetable pastas, as their rounded, earlobe shape catch the vegetables and the sauce. At the restaurant I work at now, we serve an orecchiette dish with sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli rabe, in a sauce of olive oil, garlic, and chile flakes. While browsing through a few Italian cookbooks recently, I came upon the recipe below, and it caught my interest as being a variation of this dish.
In this pasta, from the sunny, Mediterranean region of Puglia, Italy (the region at the heel of the boot), orecchiette is tossed with cauliflower (a relative of broccoli rabe) and Italian bitter greens. The olive oil, garlic, and chile of course stay the same, as we’re still deep in Southern Italy, but this recipe adds anchovy, fennel seeds, and black olives, for additional flavor.
The result is a very flavorful pasta sauce, simple to prepare but well balanced. The anchovy, olives, and grated Pecorino cheese season the dish, and the piquant chiles balance out the bitter greens.
Heat & Knives
The Recipe
Source: A Taste of Southern Italy
1 small head white or green cauliflower
2 tablespoons fine sea salt
1 pound cima di rape [Hard-to-find Italian turnip greens] or dandelion greens, beet greens, or red chard
2 ounces anchovies, preserved under salt
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 small, dried red chile pepper, crushed, or 1/3 to ½ teaspoon dried chile flakes
3 fat cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and finely minced
3 ounces dried black olives, stones removed (optional)
12 ounces orecchiette
coarse sea salt for the pasta water
1 cup just-grated pecorino
1 cup just-made fine bread crumbs, sautéed in ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Trim the cauliflower of its leaves and place it, whole, in a pot, covering it with cold water, adding 1 tablespoon of the fine sea salt and poaching it until tender. Drain the cauliflower and set it aside. Wash and trim the rape and place them in a pot, covering them with cold water, adding the remaining table of salt and poaching them for 3 minutes. Drain the rape very well, transferring them to absorbent paper towels. When the rape are cooled a bit, squeeze each piece, extracting as much water as you can before chopping them coarsely and placing them in a bowl. Add the poached cauliflower, breaking it up and blending it lightly with the rape.
Rinse the anchovies and remove their heads and bones. Dry them on paper towels and crush lightly with a fork.
In a sauté pan over a medium flame, warm the olive oil, scenting it with the fennel, crushed chile, and garlic, taking care not to color the garlic. Add the anchovies and the olives, if you wish to use them, stirring and blending the components. Add this hot mixture to the bowl with the rape and the cauliflower, smashing the whole against the sides of the bowl, permitting the vegetables to inhale the hot, spicy bath.
Cook the orecchiette in abundant, sea-salted water until al dente, draining the pasta but leaving it somewhat wet. Reserve ½ cup or so of its cooking liquids. Transfer the pasta to a large, shallow, warmed bowl. Add a few tablespoons of the cooking liquids and the pecorino to the sauce, thinning it only slightly. Add a few drops more of the cooking liquids only if the sauce is still extremely thick. Add the sauce to the pasta, tossing it and coating each little ear.
Dust the pasta with the browned bread crumbs and present the dish with a rough but honorable red wine.
August 24th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Sounds like a great recipe. I just got back from Lecce, in southern Puglia, and brought back some fresh orecchiette, so I hope I don’t completely screw this up, ’cause taking a trip from Stockholm to Lecce just for a bit of pasta isn’t exactly in my budget realm!
Wish me luck!