Pasta with Wilted Broccoli.
By Toni Anne • Mar 4th, 2008 • Category: Italian Food, Posts, Vegetarian FoodI’m not a fan of broccoli on the whole, but now that purple sprouting is in season, I do make the effort to be good and use it. Tonight I made it into a pasta sauce and this is what I did - I won’t give measurments/weights I rarely use them. You need:
- Purple sprouting broccoli
- 2 cloves of garlic (I used smoked that I brought back from France last year)
- Chilli oil (which my daughter made - ouch, it was hot!)
- Thyme leaves
- Zest and juice from one lemon
- A knob of butter
Steam the broccoli over the boiling pasta water to which you have NOT YET added the pasta. When slightly wilted, take the veg off the steam and put into the pan in which you have gently fried the garlic in the chilli oil - keeping it on a low heat. When it is a cooked a little more, add the pasta to the boiling water and as soon as it comes back to the boil, put the lid on and take it off the heat. Add the thyme to the veg, together with the lemon zest and juice and the butter, stir to distribute the flavours. When it is floppy, check the pasta, drain it and put into the pan with the broccoli check to see if you need salt, mix it all together and serve. You could, if you wanted to, serve with grated hard cheese, but I don’t find it necessary. If you don’t have chilli oil then simply use chillies. I didn’t exactly invent this dish since there must be many recipes for a similar dish, but I used what I had and I liked the way it turned out. It’s just a matter of knowing which flavours will complement each other.
- Toni Anne
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Toni Anne is a small Welsh woman who left Wales at the age of 18 and has rarely been back since. She has a daughter whom she adores and a partner who lives down the road. Toni studied fine art and, if she didn't have to work to pay the mortgage, would like to paint daily.
She enjoys good food and wine but doesn't get the chance to cook very often since her man does most of it. Toni reads a lot, mostly travel and food writing but also enjoys Terry Pratchett's DiscWorld novels. She doesn't watch TV very much but usually has the radio playing, mostly Radio 3 or 4.
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Thats a great recipe - I’m going to try it when I get back home. How does your daughter make chilli oil - the usual way or does she have her own way of doing it?
She puts a lot of home grown chillies in a bottle of olive oil in September/October then keeps it until December in a dark cupboard until it is given as gifts to family members and friends. I have no idea what varieties she has used in this batch but I have spotted at least one ‘Scotch Bonnet’.
Glad you like the sound of it, I look forward to hearing if you liked it or not.
Whats a scotch bonnet?
I must try out this recipe for pasta. its simple and quick Im sure. However I have no access to broccoli unless i ask sid to bring some for me whenever he visits me next. I wonder if I could use cauliflower or mushrooms instead?
Sid, Habaneros is another name for them.
Vinny, you can use whatever vegetable you like, I used the broccoli because it is available now as a seasonal vegetable and we are told that it is good for us. I shall use a loose leaf cabbage next time as I prefer the flavour then later in the growing season I shall use green beans.
Lisa, they stay in the bottle, though no doubt you could use them in a recipe when the oil is finished; I never have done so.
that sounds so good, especially the chilli oil. What do you do after soaking the chillies in it?
Ok - I do it the Chinese way; fry chillies in oil (you can use assorted chillies), then leave them there for a few hours. A little experiment may be in order to see the difference in output.
Interesting - I have a half litre of oil with about 8 or 9 chillies in there, whole, not sliced and they’ve been there since September/October. The oil is perfectly clear and the chillies are still their original colours but now look as if they have oil in the flesh. I wish I had a digi-cam, I could show what I mean…
hey try this recipe!!
Ingredients
* 1 fillet Skinless chicken breast
* 2 tablespoons Sun dried tomato pesto
* 1 punnet Cooking cream
* 250 grams Linguini pasta
Instructions
Boil a saucepan of water, add a pinch of salt and cook pasta according to pack directions. Cut chicken breast into cubes. In a fry pan, add a small amount of olive oil and cook chicken until sligtly brown. Add a punnet of cream and pesto. Heat over moderate flame until sauce thickens. Drain pasta and combine together. Serves two people generously.
http://www.goodrecipes.com.au/index.php?option=com_recipebookpro&func=detail&Itemid=7&id=8656&catid=0