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pasta with cime di rapa and ricotta pugliese

During my last night in Milan, rushed for time and other things to do, I quickly cooked this pasta dish with my brother. The cime di rapa, also called rapini, are from the brassica family and you can also find them in Chinese stores (although not as pungent as the Italian varieties).
Sorry about the photo quality, I took the pics quickly with my iPhone, and it was dark...


Anyway, we washed the rapini, then cut the hardest stalks and set them aside. The leaves, flowers and thin stalks went into the frying pan with olive oil and garlic, and a pinch of salt. I also added half a glass of white wine.

At the same time we boiled the water for the pasta. We didn't have orecchiette, pity, so we used penne (but use orecchiette if you can!!!). When the water was boiling we added salt and the pasta, and halfway through cooking (check on the packet for pasta cooking time) we added the rapini stalks (the ones we had set apart). When the pasta was nearly ready I picked up the rapini stalk with a slotted spoon an place them in the fryingpan with the rapini leaves, then I drained the pasta and put that too into the frying pan.


My brother had some hard ricotta pugliese, you must use the dry one for this dish, not the soft ricotta.

My brother grated some dried ricotta over the pasta and cime di rapa, and then added some black pepper. It was fantastic!!!!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

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Comments

  1. YariOctober 8, 2010 at 1:07 AM

    I love cime di rapa and I'm so happy it's in season again here in Italy :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlessandraOctober 8, 2010 at 7:32 AM

    Yeah, I have almost forgotten how wonderful the Italian ones taste!

    ReplyDelete
  3. DailyChefOctober 8, 2010 at 11:02 AM

    Mm, delicious! Also I love the new blog format and colors :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AlessandraOctober 8, 2010 at 1:15 PM

    Thanks Chef, powered by Blogger :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lazaro CooksOctober 9, 2010 at 12:21 PM

    Fantastic recipe. I love the use of the hard ricotta. Two thumbs up!

    Great job with the new look of the blog. Looks sharp.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AlessandraOctober 10, 2010 at 8:10 PM

    Cheers Lazaro :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. FaithOctober 11, 2010 at 4:47 AM

    Great Pasta recipe! I love the new look of your blog too! keep it up :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Rosa's Yummy YumsOctober 11, 2010 at 6:05 AM

    I love that veggie. Your pasta dish looks very yummy.

    Cheers,

    Rosa

    ReplyDelete

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