Orecchiette with Rapini and Goat Cheese

I finally got around to making this pasta dish with broccoli rabe and goat cheese, showcasing the unique shape of orecchiette pasta.  You may not have heard of orecchiette before, but it's heard of you.  That's a joke, because orecchiette translates as 'little ears' based on their crazy shape.  Only Italians might get that joke, and they're usually not very impressed with it.  Let's move on.

This is orecchiette, pronounced "ORE-EH-KIET-EY":

Dried orecchiette, or 'little ears'

And this is broccoli rabe:

Broccoli rabe, known also as rapini

Broccoli rabe, aka rapini, aka broccoletti, is another less common ingredient, incredibly bitter when raw, but delicious when cooked properly.  From the brassica family, it is similar to broccoli in that it has tightly bunched clusters of green buds, but it is not at all the same plant.  It is much more closely related to a turnip oddly enough, but also related to one of my favorite plants, rapeseed.  You may know rapeseed by another name given by the food industry to stop scaring off potential consumers: canola (actually, it's an acronym for a modified rapeseed breed - CANada Oil, Low Acid).  Anyway, in Italian cuisine, broccoli rabe is often slowly sauteed with garlic over low heat, though in this recipe we're going to do the more universally accepted blanch and quick saute method.  Read on to figure all of that out.

I have concluded that this recipe is inspired by the Puglia region of Italy, as based on the overlap in ingredients presented in this dish being used there.  If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me.  I found the dish to be simple to prepare, bursting with the almost nutty flavor of the browned garlic and a mild sweetness from the blanched and quickly sauteed rapini.  The tang of the lemon zest and the earthy creaminess of the goat cheese really rounded out the dish nicely, and I thought it did a great job of smacking all of my taste buds around.

It's worth noting that finding orecchiette was somewhat of a challenge, and required going to a couple of specialty stores.  This actually held me up for multiple months, as I kept checking the pasta section of my standard megalomart hoping to find them with zero success.  It was a similar story for rapini - it's hard to find out of season, which I guess would be late summer in most parts.  Check Italian stores for dried orecchiette, and Asian markets for rapini.


Orecchiette with Rapini and Goat Cheese 
Modified from Saveur

• Kosher salt, to taste
• 1 bunch rapini (about 1 lb.), roughly chopped
• 3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• ¾ tsp. crushed red chile flakes
• 12 oz. orecchiette 
• 2 tbsp. lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
• 4 oz. goat cheese, softened

The setup - a short list, but all very interesting ingredients

Bring an 8-qt. pot of salted water to a boil.  Add rapini and boil until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes.  Why not just saute and call it a day?  Because if you don't break down the bitter compounds in there first and leach them out into the cooking water, you'll end up with something that's thoroughly inedible.  Blanching (quickly boiling to partially cook the vegetables) first will mellow out the flavors quite a lot.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer rapini to a large bowl of ice water to shock (immediately stop cooking process and preserve bright green color).  Reserve boiling water for cooking pasta.  Drain rapini, pat dry, and set aside.

You have to shock the rapini after boiling, or they will keep cooking and turn grey, as well as become lifeless.

Once that step is done, heat the olive oil in a 12" skillet over medium heat.  Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 3 minutes.  I cooked my garlic a bit more than usual, adding a bit of a nuttiness and subtle bitterness that I thought played off of the now mellowed rapini quite well.  Add the chile flakes and cook, stirring frequently, for 30 seconds.  Add the rapini, toss, and remove all contents from the pan to a plate.

Saute the garlic until starting to brown

Toss the rapini in your chile infused garlic-oil mixture

Meanwhile, add the pasta to the boiling water used for the rapini and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes.  Drain pasta, reserving about a cup of the boiling water for the next step.

Reheat the skillet to medium-high heat, and transfer in the rapini mixture, pasta, and lemon zest.  Toss quickly to combine, and season with salt.  If the pasta is too dry for your taste, add a tiny amount of the boiling water to the dish and quickly stir, to give body to the dish.  I didn't do this, and loved it more on the sauceless side.

Quickly zest the lemon over the pasta

Divide pasta between bowls and add a dollop of goat cheese to each.  Serves 4 as a main dish.  Add shredded roasted chicken if you absolutely have to, but I don't think this dish requires any meat to be stellar.