Seduce Me Broccoli Pasta
A superfood recipe straight from Italy into your mouth
Picture a small one-bedroom apartment on NYC’s Upper West Side. Exposed red brick walls give way to long 1960s windows overlooking the fire escapes of other tall apartment buildings. It’s a bit like “Rear Window” but less creepy and more snowy in the humid city chill of February.
From my settled-in perch on the couch, I’m enveloped by the aroma of sauteeing garlic spilling from the closet-sized kitchen. There’s the pounding sound of a wooden spoon against the bottom of a pan to the backdrop of sizzling oil and accented English, “you ‘ave to melt dee acciughe een dee olio”.
I sip my wine, warming my insides. Tonight promises a cozy, delicious dinner with co-worker-jealousy-inducing leftovers for work tomorrow.
After what seems like I’ve been waiting for since breakfast, he hands me the steaming bowl with a “buon appetito.” I stab four fat pastas with my fork. The short, tubby pasta is radiatori, a curled shape with thick green sauce trapped between each of its many wavy layers, meant to mimick a car’s radiator. The flavor is all at once creamy, vegetably, garlicky, spicy, and salty, contrasting with the structural bite of the al dente pasta. Subtle. Savory. Not a bit of fishy taste or bitter broccoli. “This is divine”, I mumble with my mouth full. “What did you do with the anchovies?”
Ciao friends!
Welcome to today’s pasta journey…a time capsule all the way from Manhattan 2008 to present day Lago di Como. How are you? Are you going nuts over everything pumpkin and pumpkin spice lattes? While I do LOVE to carve a pumpkin for Halloween and roast crispy pumpkin seeds to snack on, I’m really excited about it being broccoli season.
Stay with me on this one.
If you don’t love broccoli already, this broccoli pasta can make you weak in the knees. It’s a fall and winter staple in Italian households and kids loooooove it. In my house, this delicious, 30 minute, superfood pasta with both protein and vegetables is unfairly dubbed the utterly mundane name of: ‘broccoli pasta.’ It deserves so much more. Thus, my title of this week’s piece, giving this sensuous broccoli pasta a name worthy of its flavor and flair.
Melting magic
Are you a broccoli pasta virgin? I know I was, well into my 30s. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We can rectify that immediately with this recipe. Let’s get into its secrets.
My Italian boyfriend introduced the umami of anchovies to me via this pasta and it’s been a love story without end (an eternal love story with anchovies, that is!).
Before anyone gets nervous:
You will not be eating chunks of anchovies in this recipe.
The taste is so subtle, you won’t even know you’re eating anchovies
…because you will be melting the anchovies.
This is where the secret lies. When you MELT anchovies, they taste like UMAMI, that 6th sense that enhances the flavor of other foods, making everything taste better. To remind you what umami tastes like, here are a couple umami food examples:
parmigiano reggiano - think how it brings nearly any pasta from a 10 to an 11
soy sauce - remember how dipping a piece of fresh sushi becomes a celestial flavor bomb
If you love Italian food, you’ve almost certainly eaten anchovies before and possibly had no idea. As a member of this very elite club of umami foods, anchovy umami:
brings a well-rounded, savory, salty flavor, more robust than just salt can bring,
harmonizes garlic and pepperoncino spice like an orchestral symphony on the beach in Puglia, and
compliments nearly any vegetable.
Quality = deliciousness fishousness
Do not buy the cheapest anchovies you can find. Just a few go a long way for insane flavor, so pay just a little bit more for quality. Look for anchovies packed in olive oil and in glass jars or a tin. Some sources:
List of test approved supermarket anchovies in the USA by Serious Eats
Giadzy.com: Giada de Laurentis shares the passion for quality anchovies in olive oil and sources them from Italy on her site
Eataly.com or Gustiamo.com: anchovies in olive oil in the tinned fishie section
How to: Melting magic
This is just a teaser to get you in the mood. The full recipe is below.
heat some extra virgin olive oil over medium heat
pull out the anchovies one by one with a fork
put them in the pan with the oil
smash them with a wooden spoon until they are broken into tiny pieces and practically dissolved into the oil or “melted” as shown in the photo below. The brownish color in the golden oil are the anchovy bits. (I am literally salivating while looking at this anchovy porn photo. It’s embarassing.)
Melted anchovies in extra virgin olive oil. It does not get sexier than this.
Alla Salute!
A little Mediterranean diet PSA: It just so happens that ALL the ingredients in this pasta sauce recipe are considered SUPERFOODS, meaning they happen to have anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties that may prevent against cancer and increase cardiovascular health. Additionally, broccoli brings fiberand vitamins for a healthy digestive system - and these adorable little anchovies are TOP in omega-3 fatty acids for a healthy brain. Superfood ingredients in broccoli pasta:
Broccoli 🥦
Olive oil 🫒
Anchovies 🐟
Garlic 🧄
Pepperoncino (optional for spicy-ness) 🌶️
Killer pasta tip from the Italian mammas
I ran an informal survey of broccoli pasta recipes with a group of 6 northern Italian mamme at a kids birthday party tonight and got a killer tip. All the mamme cook the pasta in the broccoli water like I do but 2 of the moms ALSO cook the pasta at the same time as the broccoli. This speeds up the cooking process by a good 10 minutes, and also means 1. you can’t smash the broccoli to bits with the wooden spoon, making it a smooth sauce, and 2. the broccoli doesn’t cook as long with the olive oil-anchovy mixture, so the flavor is fresher and less ‘mixed’.
Both ways are good. Depends on your mood or what you like. If you’re short on time, it’s a wonderful 30 minute option. I know because I ran home and tested it tonight for you before posting! ❤️
PS My love for anchovies runs so deep that if you’re somehow not convinced by this broccoli pasta, I recommend you pop by India Knight’s Home this week where she sings her own love song to anchovies with a glorious recipe for the best puttanesca.
pst! Scroll to the very bottom to download recipe pdf!
Broccoli Pasta
Pasta con i broccoli
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 an cut into 3 pieces
1 dried pepperoncino, little hot pepper (optional, often left out for the kids, but for me alone, it’s mandatory!)
300g broccoli, cut into florets - just the flowers, with little stem
400 g radiatori or other short pasta like fusilli or casarecci
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.
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) Chop your broccoli into florets if you haven’t done so already.
4) As soon as the water boils, add the broccoli and cook 10-15 minutes until you can easily stick a fork in through a broccoli stem
5) DO NOT DRAIN THE PASTA WATER! KEEP IT BOILING! Remove the broccoli 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 broccoli water.
6) Meanwhile, smash and stir the broccoli together with a wooden spoon over low heat until broccoli is a relatively smooth consistency.
7) Add a spoon or two of pasta water and stir to thin.
8) Strain pasta and add directly to broccoli pan. Stir until combined.
Divide your pasta into pasta bowls and top with grated parmigiano reggiano.
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: you could use almost any short pasta like fusilli or casarecce. Your goal is to choose a shape that will catch and hold the broccoli sauce.
Cooking the pasta and broccoli together: If you choose this speedier option, add the pasta to the boiling water at the same time as the broccoli in Step 4 above. Then strain them together when the pasta reaches the cooking time on the package (al dente). Add immediately to the pan with anchovy olive oil and stir over low heat. You can smash some of the broccoli florets with a wood spoon if you can do so while avoiding the pasta. Sprinkle parmigiano if desired and mangia!
Buon appetito!
x Lolly
Fish allergy! Should I not bother or is there a good sub for anchovy?
Un pea leivably good! Steve made it tonight for dinner, fresh and delicious -- great recipie!