Orecchiette with broccoli, cannellini, garlic and golden breadcrumbs

pareve Italian · easy · 35 min, including 25 hands-on

A Puglian family dish in a lean version without anchovies or cheese: broccoli florets and cannellini break down in garlic and peperoncino oil with pasta water, making a rustic cream that fills the orecchiette. Golden, salted breadcrumbs—the mollica of Bari—add crunch.

Ingredients for two

Method

1. Bring 3 litres of water to the boil with the lid on. Separate the broccoli into 3 cm florets, peel the stalk and cut into 1 cm dice. Grate and reserve the zest of the half lemon, then squeeze it. Drain the beans, rinse under cold water and leave to drain thoroughly in the colander. Finely slice the garlic.
2. Heat 10 g oil in a 28 cm sauté pan over a medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and a pinch of salt and stir for 3–4 minutes, until golden and smelling of toast. Tip onto a dry plate to stay crisp, then wipe the crumbs from the pan.
3. Add 30 g coarse salt to the water, or 10 g per litre. Add the broccoli and cook for 5 minutes: a knife tip should enter the stalk easily while the florets stay green. Lift out with a slotted spoon, keeping the water boiling for the pasta. Cook the orecchiette in it for 2 minutes less than the packet time: 12 minutes on a De Cecco packet means 10 minutes here. As soon as the pasta goes in, ladle about 250 g cooking water into a bowl.
4. Immediately heat 30 g oil in the sauté pan over a medium-low heat with the sliced garlic for 1 minute 30 seconds, until pale golden but not brown. Add the peperoncino for 20 seconds, then the drained beans. Fry for 2 minutes, crushing a third of them with a fork. Add the broccoli and 80 g reserved water. Cook over a medium heat for 4 minutes, crushing half the florets with a spoon, until the broccoli and beans form a coarse cream with small pieces remaining. If the pasta is not ready, lower the heat and add a spoonful of pasta water to keep the cream from drying out.
5. Transfer the orecchiette straight into the sauté pan with a slotted spoon, without rinsing, and add 60 g reserved water. Keep the water pot on the heat. Stir over a medium heat for 2 minutes so the hollows fill with cream. Loosen with more pasta water by the spoonful if needed. Taste and adjust with a pinch of salt: if the cream is bland, it needs salt, not oil. Turn off the heat, add the remaining 10 g oil, the zest, 1 tbsp lemon juice and 2 turns of the pepper mill, then mix.
6. Divide the orecchiette between two warm plates, only now sprinkling with the breadcrumbs, and serve immediately. Keep the crumbs on top without mixing them in, so every bite has some crunch.

On your plate

Cooking tips

Cook the stalks too: peeled and finely diced, they give the sauce body. Do not rinse the cooked broccoli, to preserve its flavour; the starch in the mashed beans and pasta water binds the sauce. Keep the breadcrumbs separate so they do not soften. Replace the broccoli with cime di rapa, turnip tops, and you are in Bari.

Equipment : 5-litre saucepan, 28 cm sauté pan, slotted spoon, ladle, colander, fine grater, pepper mill

Puglian home cooking: orecchiette with broccoli or cime di rapa and toasted breadcrumbs, mollica. This lean version has no anchovies or cheese, with cannellini mashed into the sauce as in orecchiette broccoli e fagioli.