Orecchiette con le Cime di Rapa (Apulian Orecchiette With Broccoli Rabe) Recipe

Straight from the heel of Italy, this orecchiette features olive oil, garlic, chiles, anchovies, bitter greens, and toasted breadcrumbs.

By
Katie Leaird
Katie Leaird is a contributing writer at Serious Eats.
Katie Leaird
Katie Leaird is a recipe developer and food writer who makes far too much pasta and cake on a daily basis. She spent five years at America’s Test Kitchen and now contributes to Kitchn and Hannaford’s Fresh magazine, in addition to making recipes and testing equipment for Serious Eats.
Learn about Serious Eats' Editorial Process
Updated January 23, 2024
Orecchiette con le Cime di Rapa in a white pasta bowl.

Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

Why It Works

  • Blanching the broccoli rabe leaves and florets quickly in the pasta cooking water before adding them to the skillet with the orecchiette to finish cooking ensures tenderness and keeps their vibrant color.
  • Anchovies add savory depth to the dish without making it taste fishy.
  • Toasting well-seasoned breadcrumbs with garlic and plenty of olive oil makes them a worthy stand-in for grated cheese, which was historically too expensive to use in cucina povera.

Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot, is a picturesque region known for its prolific wine and olive oil production. It's also a historically poor area. This combination of agricultural abundance and economic scarcity is what produced the Pugliese cucina povera, the “poor cuisine” that, out of necessity, relies on local, inexpensive ingredients and culinary know-how that's been passed down through the generations. Orecchiette con le cime di rapa, which translates as "orecchiette with turnip greens," is a regional treasure that's emblematic of this traditional cooking style.

Cime di rapa are the leafy green tops and leaves of the plant that we know as broccoli rabe in the States. In the past, when farmers had to sell the lion’s share of their produce to wealthier regions, they would cook up the less-desirable discards, such as those turnip tops, to make their own meals. All three parts of the broccoli rabe (also known as rapini) plant —the stems, leaves, and florets—are edible. While the stems are delicious prepared in any number of ways (roasted, sautéed, or blended into a punchy, green purée), their toothsome texture is not desirable for this dish. So, for this recipe, we separate the tender florets and leaves from the stalks, which can be reserved for another use. The cime di rapa are lightly blanched in boiling water which will later be used for cooking the pasta. Giving the rabe a head start like this softens it, and helps it turn into a velvety sauce later in the cooking process.

Orecchiette is a Pugliese specialty, where the "little ears" are always handmade with fresh semolina-water dough (in southern Italy, eggs were historically too expensive to be used for pasta-making). In Bari, the capital of the region, this history really comes alive when you walk down via dell'Arco Basso, commonly known as the "strada delle orecchiette" (orecchiette street, which gives Sesame Street a run for its money in my book), with women making pasta outdoors. They muscle through the dough, rolling snakes of it on century-old wooden boards, then cut it and shape each individual piece of pasta over their thumbs before tossing the orecchiette onto screens to air-dry in the hot city sun. They’ve been making orecchiette the same way for generations, sometimes cutting the dough with hundred-year-old table knives, as one woman showed me. The process is both simple and profoundly nuanced.

While you need to use fresh pasta to make a truly traditional orecchiette con le cime di rapa, don't fret: You can make something almost as delicious with dried orecchiette. You just need to give the sauce a little extra love. The sauce starts with garlic, anchovies, and chiles which are cooked in a generous amount of olive oil until the anchovies have dissolved. Some of the rabe cooking water gets added to the skillet, and the mixture is brought to a boil while being swirled and stirred to form an emulsion. The cooked greens and pasta are added to the mix along with some extra, now-starchy cooking water. A high-heat finish involving plenty of tossing and stirring produces a creamy sauce with tender rabe that coats the pasta, with the bitterness of the greens playing off the peppery olive oil and savory anchovies.

There’s one thing you will never see on a plate of orecchiette con le cime di rapa: grated cheese. Aged cheeses (Parmigiano-Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, and the like) are another example of luxury ingredients that don't feature prominently in the cucina povera tradition. Instead, you'll find pastas garnished with toasted pangrattato, bread crumbs made from leftover stale bread cooked in olive oil. It's the perfect crunchy topping for this iconic Pugliese dish.

March 2021

Recipe Details

Orecchiette con le Cime di Rapa (Apulian Orecchiette With Broccoli Rabe) Recipe

Prep 5 mins
Cook 35 mins
Active 30 mins
Total 40 mins
Serves 4 servings

Ingredients

For the Breadcrumbs:

  • 4 ounces (115g) rustic bread, cut into 3/4- to 1-inch pieces

  • 1 garlic clove (5g), minced

  • 2 tablespoons (30ml) extra-virgin olive oil

  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the Pasta:

  • 1/4 cup (60ml) extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

  • 4 anchovy fillets (5g)

  • 3 garlic cloves (15g), minced

  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

  • 12 ounces (340g) dried orecchiette

  • 1 pound (450g) broccoli rabe (rapini), leaves and florets picked from stalks, stalks discarded or reserved for another use (see note)

Directions

  1. For the Toasted Breadcrumbs: If using fresh or lightly stale bread, adjust oven rack to middle position, and preheat oven to 325°F (165°C). (If using fully stale and dried bread, skip baking step.) Arrange bread in single layer on rimmed baking sheet, and bake until completely dried, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and allow to cool to room temperature, about 5 minutes. Transfer bread to food processor bowl (set aside but don't clean rimmed baking sheet), and pulse until reduced to small crumbs, taking care not to over-process into a fine powder, 8 to 10 pulses.

  2. Combine breadcrumbs, garlic, and 2 tablespoons (30ml) oil in a large skillet, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring and tossing occasionally, until crisp and golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer toasted breadcrumbs to reserved rimmed baking sheet, spread into an even layer, and set aside to cool to room temperature. Wipe out skillet.

    Golden brown breadcrumbs toasted in a frying pan with garlic and olive oil.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

  3. For the Pasta: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Meanwhile, combine 1/4 cup (60ml) oil, anchovies, and garlic in now-empty skillet. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring and breaking up anchovies occasionally with a wooden spoon, until anchovies have dissolved and garlic has softened and is just beginning to turn lightly golden, about 5 minutes. Add red pepper flakes and continue to cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove skillet from heat.

    A three-image collage: The left image shows anchovies and minced garlic in olive oil in a frying pan. The top right image shows the anchovies have been dissolved. The bottom right image shows chile flakes added to the pan.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

  4. Add broccoli rabe to boiling water and cook, stirring frequently to keep submerged, until floret stems are barely tender and leaves have softened, about 1 minute. Using a spider skimmer, fine-mesh strainer, or large slotted spoon, drain rabe while keeping boiling water in the pot; transfer rabe to a plate and set aside.

    A three-image collage: The left image shows broccoli rape stems and leaves in boiling water. The top right image shows the stems and leaves removed from the water and resting in a sheet pan. The bottom right image shows the vegetable in a sheet pan.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

  5. Add orecchiette to boiling water and cook, stirring frequently for first 30 seconds to prevent pasta from sticking. Once pasta has cooked for 5 minutes, transfer 1 cup (240ml) of pasta cooking water to skillet; continue cooking pasta. Return skillet to high heat and bring to a boil, swirling pan and stirring constantly until cooking water emulsifies with olive oil-anchovy mixture, 1 to 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low while pasta finishes cooking to prevent liquid from over-reducing.

    Side by side image shows the pasta water added to the pan containing the pasta sauce and the sauce boiling vigorously in the pan.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

  6. Meanwhile, continue cooking pasta until it is softened on the exterior, but well shy of al dente and still uncooked in the center (about 3 minutes less than the package directions). Using a spider skimmer, transfer pasta to skillet along with reserved broccoli rabe. Alternatively, drain pasta using a colander or fine-mesh strainer, making sure to reserve at least 2 cups (475ml) pasta cooking water.

    Cooked orecchiette and blanch broccoli rabe in a skillet.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

  7. Increase heat to high and cook, stirring and tossing rapidly, until pasta is al dente and sauce is thickened and coats noodles, 2 to 3 minutes, adding more pasta cooking water in 1/4 cup (60ml) increments as needed. At this point, the sauce should just pool around the edges of the pan; it will continue to tighten up in the time it takes to plate and serve, so make sure it's a little looser than the ideal serving consistency. Season with salt to taste.

    Tossing together cooked orecchiette, broccoli rabe, and anchovy base in a skillet.

    Serious Eats / Sasha Marx

  8. Remove from heat, divide pasta between individual serving bowls, drizzle generously with olive oil, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and serve right away.

Special Equipment

Food processor, large skillet, fine-mesh strainer or spider skimmer

Notes

In Italy, toasted breadcrumbs are traditionally made with pangrattato—breadcrumbs made by processing stale bread. This recipe is written with instructions for making breadcrumbs from fresh or stale bread. We used a rustic sourdough loaf during recipe testing, but most types of crusty white bread will work fine.

This dish is best made with just the delicate leaves and florets of broccoli rabe; the fibrous stalks are discarded. If you don’t want to discard the stalks, you can use them for another purpose: Trim the ends, cut the stalks into 1 to 2 inch lengths and roast or sauté them with other vegetables. Or thinly slice them, sauté in olive oil, and fold them into omelettes or scrambled eggs. They can also be turned into a slightly bitter but delicious purée: Cook stalks in salted boiling water until tender, then blend with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt until smooth. The purée can be used as-is or mixed with ricotta as a pasta sauce of its own.

Make-Ahead and Storage

This dish is best enjoyed immediately. Leftover toasted breadcrumbs can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Read More

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
427Calories
23gFat
45gCarbs
11gProtein
×
Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories427
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 23g30%
Saturated Fat 3g15%
Cholesterol 1mg0%
Sodium 343mg15%
Total Carbohydrate 45g16%
Dietary Fiber 5g19%
Total Sugars 2g
Protein 11g
Vitamin C 22mg110%
Calcium 149mg11%
Iron 4mg24%
Potassium 297mg6%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

More Serious Eats Recipes