Skip to main content

Orecchiette with Broccolini



Photo by Alessandra Zecchini ©

The broccolini are from my garden :-)

First I fried some breadcrumbs with olive oil and garlic, and a little salt. When the breadcrumbs were golden I put them aside and used the same saucepan to cook the broccolini (no rinsing required, just add a little more olive oil and fresh garlic). Fresh broccolini need very little cooking, even less than broccoli, I just sautéed them with olive oil and garlic, and a pinch of salt, then turned the heat off, put the lid on the pot for a few minutes, and the remaining heat did the rest of the cooking. You need a pot with a good lid!

In the meantime I cooked the orecchiette in plenty of salted boiling water. I followed the packet instructions for this, as different manufacturers seem to have different timing and orecchiette are usually more 'crunchy' than other types of pasta.

Once ready I drained them and placed them in the pot with the broccolini, I stirred and then topped everything with the fried breadcrumbs.

A chilli can also be added to the broccolini for a hotter taste.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Simply LifeJanuary 8, 2010 at 1:42 AM

    yum! that is my favorite type of noodles and this looks just delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlisonJanuary 8, 2010 at 4:39 AM

    That looks really good! Welcome to the foodie blogroll!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mary BergfeldJanuary 8, 2010 at 6:11 AM

    What a wonderful combination. I love to see new twists given to older dishes. This sounds wonderful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. FOODalogueJanuary 8, 2010 at 9:40 AM

    Came to you via your listing in the foodie blogroll today. Ispent some time looking at your prior posts and you're doing a really nice job. I love the photo in the masthead!

    ReplyDelete
  5. ShaheenJanuary 8, 2010 at 10:04 AM

    This sounds like my kind of dish, I like the sound of the crunch breadcrumbs. I would def. add the chilli at the end as I like the idea of the extra kick.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AlessandraJanuary 8, 2010 at 6:45 PM

    Thank you all for the lovely comments, wow, so many visitors, nice to be on the Foodie BlogRoll! I will visit your blogs soon! :-)

    Alessandra

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal
9 comments
Read more

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel
13 comments
Read more

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content
5 comments
Read more