Winter's Best Savory Pasta: 30 Min Orecchiette with Cime di Rapa
Plus hiking to my favorite Lake Como mountain hut and a classic Italian cooking hack
Ciao friends!
How’s your weekend? I’ve been a bit gluttonous, but in the best possible way! We’ve been snacking on crispy Sardinian pane caracau and salty pecorino cheese drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Savory, salty, yum. It was from the just-arrived Christmas market in central Como. It’s a moment of the year when I feel extra-lucky to live here. The market fills one of Como’s small piazzas with little wooden houses selling local products from other regions of Italy. I’ve already loitered heavily at the Sardinia casetta and will surely be back! The Christmas lights are out too, with stars and angels strung over the city streets, and an ice rink fills the entire main piazza overlooking the lake. It’s a magical time of year and my heart is full. I’ll take some pictures to show you all the holiday scenes here in the next foodletter, I promise! x
All the holiday stuff is wonderful, but for me, the most exciting seasonal arrival of all is…CIME DI RAPA! Do you know it? Cime di rapa is the green leafy part of turnips. This beloved winter green has just dropped into our markets in huge bright green piles and clumps of leafy stalks with tiny broccoli-esque buds. It’s a green, lightly bitter, slightly spicy-sweet vegetable which, IMHO, makes The Most Delicious Pasta of All Time: orecchiette with cime di rapa. In this divine and classic pasta, the green’s slight bite is perfectly balanced with the smooth salty umami of anchovies and garlic. Taking it over the top into pasta ecstacy is the addition of a spicy pepperoncino, but if you don’t like spice, no worries. I usually have to forgo this because neither my son nor my partner can handle with spice and it is still my favorite pasta with or without. It’s that good!
From the heel of the boot: orecchiette
I’m a long-pasta girl. I love twirling spaghetti, coating each of the strands in sauce, the way it bends in a pot of salty water. But in the realm of short pasta, orecchiette, has my heart. It’s pronounced or-ehk-key-yeh-tay, and is a classic southern pasta whose names means little ears. Orecchiette are little cup-shapes to cradle sauces and bring them lovingly into your mouth.
My ex-mother-in-law is from Puglia, where this pasta was born. She can turn out a kilo of homemade orecchiette with her eyes closed. It was like a dream to make orechiette by hand with her in her kitchen overlooking Lake Como. I felt so incredibly blessed and lucky…and even luckier after I tasted them! What’s extra special is how every time we make this pasta, my son is reminded and connected to his nonna and their shared Pugliese heritage.
Maybe it will surprise you, but my passion for this pasta began long before moving to Italy and even before I met my Italian husband. However, in the US it’s always served with salsiccia. Not everything is better with more! Since discovering it, now my favorite is the traditional version with anchovies, garlic and pepperoncino. Pasta perfection.
Seduce Me: Part 2
If you’ve been here at Weeknight Pasta for a while, you’ll notice the cooking technique is the same as Seduce Me Broccoli Pasta, which is brilliant, because once you learn how to do it, you have two 30-minute delicious traditional Italian recipes in your repertoire! The base is the trifecta from heaven: anchovies, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. To read my full love song to anchovies, read here. The Italian trick is that the pasta is cooked in the cooking water of the cime di rapa, so it takes on even more flavor! You’ll see that the cooking water turns green and is a little bitter-spicy, layering the intensity of the dish.
Hiking to my favorite Italian mountain hut
Jump ahead to the orecchiette recipe or stick with me for a few photos about of our Thanksgiving celebration here in Italy! Clearly Thanksgiving is not a holiday here; we work on the actual day like it’s any other Thursday. But then a group of about 50 friends gathers every year to hike to a baita or mountain hut to celebrate together. Many are Americans but not all; it’s more about the company than the provenance.
When my dear friend Amy of Amy’s Cucina started the tradition, we provided traditional Thanksgiving recipes to the cooks but it was a miss, largely due to the ingredients. Turkey is not a thing here and neither are cranberries, etc etc. So a few years back, we all decided to fully Italianize our Thanksgiving and eat the local Italian mountain food because really, it is way better than turkey! We’ve done 3 years in a row at Alpe di Lemna, an agriturismo about an hour up the mountains to a 900m clearing in the woods overlooking the lake. The family makes their own goat cheese and wild blueberry grappa and pizzoccheri and the best stinco (pork shank) I’ve ever had. It’s about an hour hike with lots of chatting and laughs ending with delicious food and a warm fire. It makes me happy and warm inside just thinking about it. I’m so grateful for my loyal, fun, interesting friend group here. They are family.
Orecchiette con Cime di Rapa
Orecchiette with turnip greens
FOR 4 PEOPLE
The ingredients
180ml / 12 Tbls good quality extra virgin olive oil (this is creating your sauce, so don’t skimp!)
5 anchovy filets packed in olive oil
1 clove of garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat side of a knife
1 dried pepperoncino, little hot pepper (optional, often left out for the kids, but for me when I’m alone, it’s mandatory!)
400g rapini aka broccoli rabe aka cime di rapa, cut into 2 cm / 1-inch pieces. Make sure you add the floretsflorets - just the flowers, with little stem
400 g orechiette or other short pasta like casarecce
The method
1) Fill a big tall pot with water and salt and set on high heat stove burner. Taste the water to make sure it’s salty like the sea (and add more salt if needed).
2) Add all extra virgin olive oil to a wide saucepan/skillet on medium heat. Heat for a minute, then add the anchovies. As they heat, smash them to bits with a wooden spoon, melting them into the oil until they are in tiny pieces, being careful not to splash. The brownish color in the golden oil are the anchovy bits. (I am literally salivating while looking at this anchovy porn photo. It’s embarrassing.)
3) As soon as the anchovies are melted, turn down the heat to low and add the garlic and optional pepperoncino if you’re adding it.
4) As soon as the water boils, add the cime di rapa and cook for 15 minutes
5) DO NOT DRAIN THE PASTA WATER! KEEP IT BOILING! Remove the cime di rapa with a strainer spoon or spider and put it directly in the pan with anchovy olive oil, still warming on low heat. If you don’t like eating garlic pieces, remove it now. (I love it and keep them in as a treat!) Remove the pepperoncino.
5) Add the pasta to the salted cime di rapa water.
6) Meanwhile, stir the cime di rapa with a wooden spoon over low heat so it absorbs the flavor of the anchovies, olive oil.
7) Add a spoon or two of pasta water and stir to thin.
8) Strain pasta and add directly to the cime di rapa pan. Stir until pasta is coated.
Divide your pasta into pasta bowls and top with grated parmigiano reggiano, if desired. (This is one of the few pastas my son never puts parmigiano on!)
Serving tips:
· Serve with parmigiano for umami on top of umami!
Notes:
Salt: It’s important not to skimp. This salt is flavoring both your pasta and also your sauce in the form of pasta water.
Pasta: Any kind of orecchiette will do: dried, fresh, or fresh homemade. Because we live in Italy and it’s easy to buy fresh orecchiette in the refrigerator section of any supermarket, I usually use that. It has a nice chewy bite to it. You could use almost any short pasta like casarecce, as well!
Buon appetito!
x Lolly
Oooh I love the bitterness!
I love, love, love this recipe. Probably make it once a week this time of year. but I must admit I've never quite mastered the art of making orecchiette. They always come out looking like elephant ears. Need to work on my small motor skills.. So I usually buy them!