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.

Spinach Salad with Roasted Beets and Bacon Vinaigrette

I found a version of this online somewhere, and modified ratios slightly to get the proportions I wanted.  The result was delicious, and although distinctly non-vegetarian, it was a very hearty salad.  If you haven't tried roasted beets before, I highly recommend giving this dish a shot as your first taste of them.  And if you don't like them, hey, at least there's bacon!

Roasted beets are delicious, and the golden ones look pretty cool too

Spinach and Beet Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette, Goat Cheese, and Hazelnuts

Serves 6 as an appetizer, 3 as a main course

• 2 large beets
• 8 cups spinach
• ½ cup crumbled goat cheese
• ½ cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped
• 5 ounces bacon, cut into ¼ inch cubes
• 1/4 cup good quality olive oil
• 2 tbsp good quality balsamic vinegar
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Wash and trim beets then wrap each beet individually in aluminum foil.  Roast the beets until a knife slides through, about 40 to 60 minutes depending on the size.  Once cool enough to handle, slip off the skins and cut into a ¾” dice.  Place in a bowl and set aside with the spinach, goat cheese, and hazelnuts.

To roast beets, just trim the ends, wrap in foil, and bake.  Then peel them once cooled slightly.

Cube into whatever size you like

Cook the bacon in a small sauté pan over medium heat in a bit of the olive oil until the bacon has rendered its fat and is slightly crisp.  Remove bacon to a plate and pour off all but 2 tbsp of bacon fat from the pan, then add the remaining olive oil and vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Whisk lightly to incorporate and continue to heat the oils lightly.  Toss the beets with a bit of the dressing and then the spinach, making sure you place all of the bacon on the spinach.  You may not need all the dressing – don’t use too much, or this will have a greasy feel to it.  Serve on individual plates with spinach first, topped with the beets, crumbled goat cheese, and hazelnuts.

Twice-baked Butternut Squash with Kale and Goat Cheese

Wandering the stores before the Thanksgiving holiday, I watched as people bought strawberries, asparagus, and all kinds of other things that aren't in season right now, and probably taste like pale husks of their intended glory.  And I figured it would be irresponsible not to at least serve something that makes you feel like it's actually Autumn.  But all I kept seeing were soup and casserole recipes, and they weren't doing it for me this year.  So I started thinking, what about a "twice-baked squash"?  You know, you cook it, then you fill it up with something, and then you cook it again.  Maybe omit the large amounts of sour cream that rocketed the twice-baked potato to stardom, but at least fill the squash with other seasonal ingredients.  Plus cherry tomatoes - I know, I'm a terrible person.

In my hunt for this recipe, I came pretty close with one from Olive Magazine, which called for zucchini and bell peppers to be stuffed into a roasted squash.  So I modified the ingredient list slightly, to substitute in sauteed kale instead.  The result ended up exceeding my expectations and capacity, full of complex flavors from the roasted vegetables, and filling enough to be its own meal.  For better or worse, this ended up being one of our sides for Thanksgiving, so we ended up with quite a bit left over.  Overall, this recipe would make a great vegetarian dinner or an impressive (but large) side.  I don't even know what to call it because there's so much going on, so let's just go with twice-baked squash.

A bit more healthy than your average twice-baked potato, I'd say

Twice-Baked Butternut Squash with Goat Cheese and Kale

Modified from Olive Magazine, March 2007

• 2 small butternut squash
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• a pinch (1/8 tsp) dried red chile pepper flakes
• 1 tsp thyme, chopped
• 10 ounces kale, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 2 small red onions, cut into thin wedges
• 7 ounces cherry tomatoes
• 3 ounces pine nuts
• 3 ounces goat's cheese, crumbled
• 1 tbsp breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp parmesan

Heat the oven to 400 F. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds, then cut criss-cross patterns over the cut side of each one.  Mix together the garlic, 2 tbsp olive oil, chile flakes, and thyme, and brush this mixture over the flesh.

The prepped squash, before roasting

Place the squash on a large sheet pan lined with parchment paper, and bake for about 20-30 minutes.  Then add the onion wedges to the sheet pan, and roast for an additional 20-25 minutes.  Finally, add the tomatoes and pine nuts, and cook for another 10 minutes.  If at any point the squash look to be done, remove them to a plate and finish roasting the remaining vegetables.  What does that look like?  Well, see below.  Also, smoke coming from your oven is a good indicator that you should roast for at least another 3 hours, and then go out for dinner.  Total time for the squash to be in the oven in this step is 45-60 minutes based on how well your oven is calibrated.

The squash and vegetables, after roasting.  Sorry you can't smell this through your computer screen, but maybe if you try hard enough...

To make the filling, saute the kale in a large pan over medium-high heat in the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and feel free to add some additional crushed garlic in this step as well.  Then, in a small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs, parsley and parmesan.  All of the above steps can be completed early in the day, or the day prior.

Kale - it's not just for decorating cheese trays and salad bars anymore.  Saute in a large pan with olive oil.

Garnish the stuffed squash with a mixture of breadcrumbs, parsley, and freshly grated Parmesan

 

Try to shove everything into the squash in an attractive way, then roast again to brown and melt the cheeses

Arrange the roasted vegetables and goat's cheese in the squash halves, scatter with the breadcrumb mix and bake for a further 10 minutes or until golden and bubbling.  If you prepared the ingredients earlier and they have cooled, add another 10 minutes to the cooking time.

Here's what the finished product looks like, served as part of our Thanksgiving meal