Pugliese pasta with purple sprouting broccoli and chili
This recipe comes from the fab regional Italian recipe book The Painter, the Cook and the Art of the Cucina.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. In the meantime finely chop 2 garlic cloves and 1 red chili pepper. Take a bunch of purple sprouting broccoli, strip the leaves, slice them and then set these aside. Place the broccoli on a cutting board and slice finely through the florets. If the stems are relatively young then you can also include these.
Add 200g cavatelli pasta (or orechiette pasta) to the boiling water and cook till al dente (see packet cooking instructions for guidelines). Halfway through add the chopped broccoli florets.
In the meantime, in a large frying pan add 2 tbs olive oil and then the garlic and chili and stir for about 30 seconds. Now add the broccoli leaves and stir around on a medium-high heat till the leaves start to wilt. Turn down the heat to low, add 1/2 cup of the cooking water to the pan and then add 2 anchovy fillets (don’t worry - the end result won’t taste fishy at all!). Stir around till the anchovies dissolve.
Strain the pasta, reserving another 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the vegetables and toss for a couple minutes, adding a little more water to moisten, if necessary.
Drizzle with a little more olive oil, some sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and serve with some grated parmsean.
Serves 2.
