One of the dishes we enjoy on regular rotation during the colder months is orecchiette con cime di rapa., orecchiette pasta dressed with sautéed broccoli rabe sautéed in olive oil with garlic, anchovy and just a tiny pinch of hot red pepper.
As you may know, orecchiette, meaning “little ears”, are little disks of pasta made from durum wheat and water pressed with the thumb so they come out concave, giving them their characteristic ear-like appearance. This wonderfully chewy pasta marries superbly with the slightly bitter pungency of the brassica. No wonder orecchiette con cime di rapa is one of the most iconic pasta dishes in the cookery of Puglia.
Here’s a recipe that adds yet another layer of flavor to this classic dish. It calls for orecchiette di grano arso, a special kind of orecchiette made with toasted wheat, which lends it a lovely smokiness, and sausage rather than anchovies. which adds extra heft and nicely compliments the smokey flavor of the pasta.
It’s a dish that’s packed with flavor and, like the original, can be whipped up in well under 30 minutes assuming you’re using store bought pasta. So if you like assertive tastes, why not make it part of your regular rotation?
Ingredients
Serves 4-6
- 400g (14 oz) orecchiette
- 1 bunch of broccoli rabe (about 400g/14 oz), trimmed of its tough stalks and roughly chopped
- 2-3 cloves garlic, slightly crushed and peeled
- 300g (11 oz) mild Italian sausages, crumbled
- salt
- olive oil
To serve:
- olive oil
- freshly grated pecorino cheese
Directions
Boil the orecchiette and broccoli rabe together in a large pot of well salted boiling water.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, lightly sauté the garlic in olive oil until the garlic just begins to brown around the edges. Discard the garlic.
Raise the flame and add the crumbled sausage meat. Sauté until just lightly browned. If the pasta isn’t ready yet, keep warm over the barest flame.
When the orecchiette are al dente, transfer them and the broccoli rabe with a slotted spoon into the skillet.
Simmer everything together over a lively flame, mixing as you go until the pasta and broccoli rabe are well seasoned by the sausage and oil. The broccoli rabe should have more or less disintegrated by now into a kind of ‘sauce’. Taste for seasoning and add salt to taste, if need be.
Serve piping hot, drizzling a bit more olive oil on top of each portion if you like with freshly grated pecorino on the side for those who want it.
Notes
There aren’t too many ways to slip up here. To start, don’t burn the garlic. Sautê it low and slow to coax out maximum flavor, then discard it before adding the sausage. And don’t over-brown the sausage either—you want it just lightly browned around the edges. Sausage meat has a certain pleasant sweetness that gets lost if you brown it too much.
Many if not most recipes for this dish have you boil the broccoli rabe first, transfer it to the skillet, then proceed to boil the pasta in the same water. This way the broccoli rabe flavors the water, which then flavors the pasta. You can also control precisely the doneness of both pasta and broccoli rabe.
Personally I take the lazy approach and cook the veg and pasta together, as directed above. I figure they take about the same time to cook (usually around 10 minutes) and boiling them together lets the flavors to mingle just as well. In my own experience, the difference in the end result is minimal. But try it both ways and decide for yourself.
Like a lot of recipes like this, you can feel free to alter the measurements for the broccoli rabe and sausage to your taste. I found these produce a nicely balanced dish. But if you really like sausage, for instance, you could add more. Or use less for a lighter dish.
Orecchiette di grano arso
Orecchiette di grano arso, which means ‘burnt grain orecchiette’, were originally just what they sound like. Back in the day, poor farmers would burn their fields after the harvest to clear them cheaply and quickly, then scavange the burnt fields for any wheat that survived the fire. This burnt wheat was milled to make farina di grano arso used for making pasta—not only orecchiette but other pasta shapes like cavatelli and strascinati—as well as baked goods like taralli and focaccia. Today durum wheat is carefully roasted to just the right degree to produce this peculiar flour, lending it a wonderfully nutty, smoky flavor and its characteristic dark color.
To my mind, orecchiette di grano arso are a perfect foil for sausage and broccoli rabe. But they also are lovely with cherry tomatoes and arugula or with meat or seafood sauces. In other words, they work in just about any recipe where you’d use regular orecchiette but want a subtlely smokey back flavor.
Orecchiette di grano arso aren’t terribly easy to find where I live, but you can sometimes spy them in finer Italian food stores. I got mine online at Alma Gourmet.
Variations
To lend a sweet note to your dish, substitute chopped shallots for the garlic. These, of course, you don’t discard.
You can add a peperoncino (dried hot pepper) or two to the skillet to sauté along with the garlic if you like things spicy. Personally it’s something I do when I make this dish with anchovies, but not with sausage. You could also use hot sausage.
You can veganize the dish simply by omitting the sausage. The broccoli rabe, sautéed in garlic and oil, has plenty of taste all on its own.
Personally I don’t think this recipe needs it, but if you like you can toss the pasta with grated pecorino just before serving. Or have some on the side for those who want it.
Making Ahead and Leftovers
This isn’t a dish that lends itself to making ahead, but you could make the sauce ahead if you want. Boil the broccoli rabe then sauté it in the skillet with the sausage. Reserve the cooking water for boiling the pasta.
Leftovers can be gently reheated with a small bit of water. Like the regular variety, orecchiette di grano arso reheat rather better than other pasta shapes.
Orecchiette di grano arso con cime di rapa e salsiccia
Ingredients
- 400 g orecchiette
- 1 bunch of broccoli rabe about 400g/14 oz, trimmed and roughly chopped
- 2-3 cloves garlic slightly crushed and peeled
- 300 g mild Italian sausages, crumbled
- salt
- olive oil
To serve
- olive oil
- freshly grated pecorino cheese
Instructions
- Boil the orecchiette and broccoli rabe together in a large pot of well salted boiling water.
- Meanwhile, in a large skillet, lightly sauté the garlic in olive oil until the garlic just begins to brown around the edges. Discard the garlic.
- Raise the flame and add the crumbled sausage meat. Sauté until just lightly browned. If the pasta isn’t ready yet, keep warm over the barest flame.
- When the orecchiette are al dente, transfer them and the broccoli rabe with a slotted spoon into the skillet.
- Simmer everything together over a lively flame, mixing as you go until the pasta and broccoli rabe are well seasoned by the sausage and oil. The broccoli rabe should have more or less disintegrated by now into a kind of ‘sauce’. Taste for seasoning and add salt to taste, if need be.
- Serve piping hot, drizzling a bit more olive oil on top of each portion if you like with freshly grated pecorino on the side for those who want it.
Nutrition
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Frank, that’s very interesting background about the origin of ‘Orecchiette di grano arso’ (farmers burning their fields). I like a little heat i my food, so I could use some of my leftover dried Nora peppers from my Spanish cooking!