Pasta with Purple Sprouting Broccoli

My dear friends at Juliansdale Organic Farm just brought me some of their delicious and super fresh purple sprouting broccoli and I am cheering: “Hurray their season is back!!!“

The purple sprouting broccoli remind me of a very common Italian vegetable that we can’t find in Ireland: “le cime di rapa“.

This is how the purple sprouting broccoli look like:

As soon as I got them from our friends, I immediately decided to cook them for our pasta.

You must know that, typical of Puglie, the heel of the Italian boot, is a dish called: “orecchiette con le cime di rapa“.

How lucky we are that at Lidl they are selling special pasta and also orecchiette!!!

Nothing could stop me!!!

Here is my pasta with purple sprouting broccoli recipe:

Ingredients For Pasta With Purple Sprouting Broccoli

• 300 g purple (or green) sprouting broccoli
• 6/8 anchovies fillets
• 2 garlic cloves
• and a dash of extra vergin olive oil!
• 500 g pasta

Instructions For Pasta With Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Wash carefully in plenty of salted water the sprouting broccoli.

Leave the leaves on, they are lovely and, if the sprouting broccoli are fresh as mine were don’t cut anything, otherwise trim a little bit from the stems.

In the meantime heat some extra virgin olive oil in a pan, squeeze the garlic in and add the anchovies fillets so that they can melt and fill the oil with all their flavors.

Then add the sprouting broccoli still wet being very careful to lay them gently on the pan to avoid burning splashes of hot oil.

You will notice that the purple will turn into green (“magic” process that my kids always love to watch):

Cover and let them cook checking from time to time that they have always a bit of moisture (if necessary add a tiny bit of water) to prevent them from burning.

When their big stems are tender they are ready. And believe me it will get very tender.

When the pasta is ready drain it and add it to the lovely vegetable. Mix well and enjoy!