Pasta with Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Toasted Breadcrumbs
By Adriana Zanchi
This is such a comforting dish! The purple sprouting broccoli collapses into a creamy and satisfying sauce that goes perfectly with pasta; honestly, it’s great even on toast or as a vessel for a fried egg. I also love the addition of toasted breadcrumbs, a common practice in the south of Italy where “muddica” can be used on top of pasta instead (or with) cheese.
If you don’t have purple sprouting broccoli, you can make this dish with regular broccoli, tenderstem broccoli, kelettes or Romanesco cauliflower.
Ingredients (serves 2 people)
180g pasta (mezze maniche or rigatoni, caserecce, orecchiette, fusilli)
180g purple sprouting broccoli
2 or 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 small fresh chilli, finely chopped (or 1 tsp of dried chilli)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the toasted bread crumbs:
50g soft white breadcrumbs
A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
A couple of anchovy fillets
Method
Firstly, make the breadcrumbs. In a small frying pan, heat a drizzle of olive oil with a couple of anchovies, keep the heat low until the anchovies have slowly dissolved into the oil and add the breadcrumbs, continuing to stir until golden. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. In the meantime, wash the broccoli and roughly chop them. If there are any thick stalks, slice them in half. Set aside while you wait for the water to come to boil.
In a shallow pan, big enough to hold all the pasta, gently heat the oil with the crushed garlic and chilli. You’ll soon start hearing the garlic sizzle, cook it gently until it’s lightly golden. Fish out the garlic (or leave it if you love garlic!) and turn the heat off. Don’t allow garlic or chilli to burn as it will make the dish utterly bitter!
When the water comes to a fast boil, add the chopped broccoli and cook for 5 minutes. In the meantime, turn the heat back on under the pan with the olive oil. Once cooked, scoop all the broccoli out of the water with a slotted spoon straight into the frying pan with the sizzling oil, followed by a splash of the cooking water. Add a pinch of salt.
Bring the broccoli water back to the boil and cook the pasta until al dente (two minutes less than the packet says is a good rule). While it cooks, keep the broccoli at a simmer, crushing it with a wooden spoon and adding a splash more water if it dries out. By the time the pasta cooks, you should have a lovely green cream.
Drain the pasta and add to the broccoli pan, keeping a mug of the starchy cooking water aside. Toss well, adding a splash or two of the cooking water to loosen and emulsify the sauce. Keep swishing the pan, check the seasoning, add some freshly ground black pepper and serve with the toasted breadcrumbs on top.
Buon appetito!
