Orecchiette with sausage and rapini

Hello friends, finally I can post a recipe that I usually do in this autumn period. I had not been able until now to post the recipe because we lacked photos, do you know that wrapped voracity travels faster than a budding photographer? I think a lot of bloggers can understand me. I had already published something like this in a very tasty revisited version Orecchiette with turnip greens and mixed minced meat, this time I publish another as many delicious version even simpler and faster, the Orecchiette with turnip greens and sausage. I love this dish and sometimes a week I gladly give it then you know as you prepare the same dishes, especially if you like them you go to refine more and more the way to prepare them in increasingly good ways. Excellent as a single dish, very rich in ingredients.

A rich, meaty variation on the classic Apulian pasta. Pork sausage, bitter greens, olive oil, garlic, chilies, and al dente orecchiette. This dish is a meaty variation on Puglia's famed orecchiette con le cime di rapa. Both versions feature al dente pasta tossed with bitter broccoli rabe that's been cooked down into a sauce with olive oil, garlic, chilies, and starchy pasta cooking water. Here, fresh pork sausage and a splash of white wine join the party, filling in for the assertive savory punch of anchovies used in the cucina povera ("poor cuisine") classic. The sausage adds juicy fattiness and floral notes of fennel to the mix, while the sweet acidity of the wine balances the bite of the rabe. It's a richer dish, in more ways than one.

For purists, "cime" are just the tender leaves and florets of broccoli rabe. They are picked from the more fibrous stalks of the plant, which are then discarded or used for other purposes. For orecchiette con le cime di rapa, I recommend following this practice, as the texture in the dish should come from the chew of the pasta and the crunch of the toasted breadcrumb topping, rather than the vegetables. But for this dish, we blanch the tender stalks as well as the leaves and florets, so that they end up with the same light chew as the sausage.

Even though anchovies don't generally feature in sausage-and-rabe recipes, I still like to dissolve one or two fillets in oil along with the garlic and chiles. They provide background savoriness without announcing their presence in the dish. As with aglio e olio, the pasta finishes cooking in the "sauce," if you can call it that, which is just an emulsion of olive oil and the water used to cook the rabe and orecchiette. Because the water also has some flavor from the rapini, I like to use a lot of it to finish the pasta, leaving the sauce looser, on the very edge of being slightly brothy. Tossed, stirred, and swirled over high heat, this mixture forms a glossy coating for the noodles.

Whereas orecchiette con le cime di rapa is traditionally a no-cheese pasta, this version allows for a dairy exception. A small handful of grated salty cheese like Pecorino Romano is not out of the question, providing a sharp, tangy foil to the peppery olive oil and bitter greens. Of course, for those who prefer to keep the dish dairy-free, the crispy breadcrumbs used as a stand-in for cheese in the original recipe will also work just fine.

Ingredients for 4

Turnip greens 1kg 

Orecchiette  300 gr

Fresh chili pepper 1 or 4 teaspoons of dried chili.

Sausage 300 gr

Garlic 2 crushed

Extra virgin olive oil 4 tablespoons

salt to taste

1 to 2 anchovy fillets 

Preparation

We put on the fire a pot of salted water, at least 1.5 l to cook the orecchiette and while we wait for it to reach the boil to throw the pasta, we move on to the sauce. We clean leaf by leaf turnip greens choosing the most tender leaves, with the flowers still closed, of the large leaves I removed only the softest parts, some more explanation can be found in knowing the vegetables the turnip greens. We wash under cold running water several times and drain in a colander. We put in a pan with oil two crushed cloves of garlic, but you can also cut them in half in 4 tablespoons of oil and if you like 4 teaspoons of dried chili pepper. Let it sizzle for a few seconds and put the sausage without crumbled gut. Add the turnip greens, anchovy and let stew everything together covered. If necessary, add a ladle of water from the pasta pot. Once the vegetables are cooked, we cook the orecchiette and once ready drain lightly leaving them still moist and put in the pan of the sauce, sauté and season to taste. 

A couple of notes 

I used orecchiette here because they're one of my favorite shapes but use whatever pasta you like best. You can use either spicy or sweet sausage. If I had had some wine hanging around I'd probably have added a splash of it to the pan to deglaze it after I cooked the sausage - will try this next time. A little bit of lemon zest mixed in with the breadcrumb mixture is also lovely. If for some reason you want a side instead of a main, you can leave out the pasta and sausage here; the cime di rapa and breadcrumbs make for a lovely side alone. Finally, you can substitute broccoli or any other green you like for the broccoli rabe, if you prefer.