pasta recipes

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Rapini-to-riches tale: A New York chef’s recipe inspires a fresh take on a favorite weeknight pasta

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By Leslie Brenner

For years — decades, even — the favorite weeknight dish in our household was pasta with rapini and Italian sausage. It’s easy and quick (about 5 minutes of prep), and that combo of slightly bitter greens with salty sausage and comforting grated parm is a winner. I’m not the only one who loves it — there are a gazillion recipes for it floating around out there.

At some point, we cut way back on white flour for health reasons, and our pasta consumption plummeted. We’ve tried myriad commercial whole-wheat pastas, but they usually eat like a punishment, cardboardy or gummy or both. We still eat pasta — joyfully and with gusto! — but it has become more a special treat than a weeknight habit.

Now, thanks to a dramatically better whole-grain pasta that’s new on the national market — Sfoglini Organic Whole Grain Reginetti — and a new approach to the beloved rapini-and-sausage marriage, we’ve made pasta a weeknight-at-home thing again.

In the old days, my rendition of the dish was cartoonishly basic. I’d put up a big pot of salted water to boil, trim the rapini, drop it in the boiling water, leave it 3 or 4 minutes, pull it out with tongs, shock with cold water, and cut the stems into large pieces. Next I’d heat olive oil in a sauté pan, crumble in and brown some Italian sausages, add a little garlic if I wasn’t feeling lazy, boil pasta (usually penne or farfalle) in the water that had turned green from the rapini, and while the pasta was boiling, toss the rapini in with the sausage and cook for a minute to pick up the flavor, along with a big pinch of Aleppo pepper or chile flakes. Sometimes I’d add a splash of white wine. Once the pasta was done, I’d toss it with the rapini and sausage, grate some parm on top and pass more parm with it at the table.

Farfalle with rapini and sausage, the old way. This one was made by a family member, who fancied it up with shallots.

A recipe in Missy Robbins’ 2021 magnum opus, Pasta, made me fall in love all over again.

The Robbins recipe — Orecchiette con Cime di Rapa — is the Puglian grandmother of my old favorite weeknight pasta. But as the New York chef explains in her headnote, in Puglia, the rapini (cime di rapa) is paired not with sausage, but with anchovies. Orecchiette, or “little ears,” is the traditional pasta shape for the dish — a tradition I generally left by the wayside, as I’m not a fan of store-bought dried orecchiette; hence, my use of penne or farfalle.

As an anchovy enthusiast, I was keen to try Robbins’ version — which I did posthaste. I didn’t wait until I had time to make handmade orecchiette as the recipe directed; I grabbed a box of farfalle I had in the pantry. Wow — what a fabulous dish, and so completely different than my eons-old approach. Robbins has you pull off all the rapini’s leaves, chop them finely, chop the stems and florets pretty small as well, and braise it all so the rapini breaks down into a “kind of ragù.” The anchovy, aided and abetted by grated pecorino romano cheese, supplies abundant umami. Toasted bread crumbs add garlic-flavored textural pizzazz. So damn good!

Finely chopped rapini leaves

Meanwhile, a New York-based chef friend introduced me to the Sfoglini pasta, which has beautiful texture and excellent flavor. I hadn’t realized I could find the product (from a company also based in New York) in my neighborhood Whole Foods. How great would it be, I asked myself, to adapt Robbins’ rapini-into-ragù technique to my old favorite recipe, using the whole-grain reginetti? The ruffly shape of the pasta would be perfect with this sauce. I’d use Italian sausage instead of anchovies, crumbling it a little more than I used to, and swap Parmigiano Reggiano for the pecorino romano. Sure, finely chopping the rapini leaves and toasting bread crumbs would add a few minutes to my old standard, but I suspected the upgrade would be worth it.

And it is!

My recipe takes a bread-crumb short-cut, using store-bought plain ones rather than starting with a country loaf. You’ll be left with enough extra crumbs to make the dish again.

Whole-grain reginette and rapini

Down the rabbit hole

Now the rabbit hole part. I was not terribly surprised to learn from Robbins’ headnote that orecchiette con cime di rapa, which has variations in Puglia (sometimes it has clams, sometimes bread crumbs) features anchovies, not sausage; it makes sense, as historically it’s a poor seaside region where anchovies would be more accessible and affordable than meat. But Robbins and her co-writer, Talia Baiocchi, suggest that the combo of orecchiette, rapini and sausage is not Italian at all. Rather, the dish picked up its sausage variation on the way to America, and “ran with it to the point where most Americans assume it is traditional.”

Really? The combo of Italian sausage and rapini just seems so Italian.

I cracked my books and hit the internet, but after weeks of research, I have not found any definitive citation that tells whether pasta with rapini and sausage is traditional anywhere in Italy. Certainly the combination exists there; I have found several mentions of cavatelli with rapini and sausage, including one from Naples. And I’ve turned up several references to whole sausages cooked with rapini (but without pasta) in Puglia. I’ve also found a few one-off references to various other pastas with rapini and sausage — with maltagliati (on a site based just south of San Marino), with pici (in a Puglia-meets-Tuscany mashup recipe from La Cucina Italiana), or with cavatelli (on a Milan-based site). But altogether, I found so few references that it seems unlikely that it’s traditional.

The 10 or so Italian cooking reference books on my shelf turned up exactly nothing on the subject.

So for now I throw up my hands. Maybe someone will magically appear and supply a definitive answer, or at least a meaningful lead. (In a few days, I’m having dinner with my friend Carlo — who shed essential insight on the permissibility of putting ragù Bolognese on spaghetti. Perhaps he’ll have the answer.)

In the meantime, enjoy the pasta.

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Craving pasta? This soul-stirring lamb bolognese takes it to another level

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I know what you're thinking: A massive platter of pasta smothered in some kind of luscious sauce would make everyone feel really good this weekend.

Sure, you can always simmer up a dependable beef bolognese, but maybe you want to branch out, take your ragu game up a notch. This sumptuous lamb bolognese is the answer.  

Start thinking now of your favorite people: That's who you'll want to make this for. Nibbles to start, then salad, then the massive plate of pasta. Red wine. The sauce's simmer may be long and slow, but this the easiest kind dinner to execute. Zero stress involved. And the flavor payoff is huge.

This is what your friends will see when they walk in and find you cooking.

This is what your friends will see when they walk in and find you cooking.

It's the kind of thing you want to make on a lazy weekend, when you want the kitchen to fill with dreamy aromas. Once you've put it together, you leave it to bubble quietly why you catch up on your reading. Or eat bonbons. Or paint your toenails. Or bake bread. OK, maybe baking bread doesn't count as lazy, but fresh-baked bread (or any good crusty loaf) would be just thing thing to sop up all that wonderful sauce. Or maybe this is the moment to make your first homemade pasta. 

But you don't have to: This bolognese is splendid on the fettuccine or pappardelle from a box, too. You can make the sauce a day or two ahead of serving, or put it on the table as soon as it's done. 

Lamb Shanks, with the meat cut off the bones

It all starts with lamb shanks, a relatively inexpensive cut. If you've ever made them, you know what happens to them in a long, slow braise: They become incredibly tender to the point of falling off the bone. That's the idea here, but you keep braising past that point, until the meat completely falls apart, melding gorgeously with the rest of the ingredients – wine, tomatoes, broth, aromatic vegetables, dried mushrooms. 

Soffritto

In order to easily brown the meat a bit before the braise starts, I cut it mostly off the bones, into large chunks. But what follows is not a major browning operation: just give the chunks a spin in a pan of shimmery hot olive oil rather than searing them hard. The idea is to get some of that nice caramelized flavor but keep the softness of the meat. It's quick and painless and you don't wind up spattering your kitchen with oil. Toss the bones in the pan, too, for added flavor, and since there's still plenty of meat clinging to them. No need to be careful when you cut the chunks.

After the meat is browned and set aside, next comes the soffritto: You know, that aromatic trio of carrots, onion and celery. Cook them with a little pancetta in a splash of olive oil till they're soft, toss in a few lightly smashed garlic cloves and you're nearly there (work-wise, anyway). 

Next you deglaze the pan with red wine – just about any old kind will do. (Not familiar with deglazing? It's a fancy word for adding wine and scraping up the browned bits sticking to the pan and sending them into the sauce.) Add broth, a can of tomatoes, bay leaves and rosemary, a handful of dried porcini mushrooms and a lemon peel. 

That's it. Leave it to simmer – and simmer and simmer – until your kitchen smells wonderful and all that meat relaxes into deliciousness with all those supporting flavors. 

 

So, what do you think? Is this the day you're going to make fresh pasta? It's probably easier than you think.  Here's the technique and recipe:

Or not. Either way. But if you're buying the pasta, considering splurging on the one that looks the best and most artisanal. Not sure? See if you can see the texture through the package: You don't want it to look too slick; go for one with some texture. Rustichella d'Abruzzo is a great Italian import you can sometimes find in really good supermarkets. 

Now let's go check on the sauce.

Wow, look – it's nearly done! Hey – did you think about wine? This would be the moment to open that great-looking Barolo your uncle gave you for your birthday. In fact, pretty much anything Italian would be fabulous with it, especially if it starts with a B: Barbaresco, Brunello (yeah, yeah, I know – they're expensive). Barbera! Bingo. Or Chianti, or Rosso di Montalcino, or just about anything, really. This is not a moment to be fussy.

Are you wondering what would make a great starter? How about an escarole salad with crispy prosciutto, egg and parm?

I just happen to have the recipe for you . . . 

OK. Time to eat. Aren't you excited? I know I am. Drop that pasta in the boiling water. Cook it till it's al dente. If your pasta's fresh, that'll just be three minutes or so. Pull it out of the water and drop it into that wonderful sauce. Give it a stir, let it simmer in there for a minute or three. 

Now onto the giant platter it goes. Don't forget the big chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano to pass with a grater at the table. 

Oh, I almost forgot: Here's the recipe:

Now start rounding up those friends. And try to save me a bite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Luscious pappardelle with duck and porcini ragù can happen in your very own kitchen

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Pappardelle with duck and porcini ragù

There they were, on a shelf in my fridge: six duck legs.

What to do with them? I could roast them, I thought. 

But I wanted something luscious. Saucy and luscious. I wanted a braise. 

A ragù! I could make a rich, delicious duck ragù to dress big, fat, toothsome homemade pappardelle noodles. Once it got to simmering, I could make fresh pasta, working slowly and lazily as the kitchen filled with magnificent aromas. 

I hadn't made fresh pasta in years. Maybe more than a decade. But now, suddenly, I had to have it. Oh, to feel the dough gliding through the rollers of the pasta machine, then later to bite into springy, lively noodles – bathed in that luscious ragù I'd already conjured in my brain's delicious-dream center.

No turning back now. 

What did I need? What did I have? Red wine, check. Onion and carrot, check. Fresh thyme, check. Can of diced tomato, box of chicken broth, check. I even had some dried porcini, which would be perfect with the duck, rounding out and deepening the flavor. Flour and eggs for the pasta, check. 

Looked like I was in business.

 

It might sound daunting to achieve something so impressive in your own kitchen, but the duck ragù part is actually pretty easy. If you don't feel up to making your own pasta, you can still feast deliciously on duck and porcini ragù with dried pappardelle. 

Here's how it goes. Brown the duck legs in a little olive oil, then sauté onions, diced carrot and garlic cloves. Deglaze the pan with red wine, add herbs, chicken broth, tomatoes, dried porcini and the duck legs, cover the pot partially and simmer – and simmer and simmer, low and slow. See? Nothing to it. And you're almost there.

Meanwhile, make the fresh pasta, concocted from nothing more than flour and eggs. You can make the dough in a jiff in the food processor, but lately I'm feeling low tech, so I mixed it by hand in a big bowl. (Also, my food processor blade has been recalled by Cuisinart.) It's not as difficult you might think; do it a few times, and it becomes goofy-easy. In fact, I'll reckon you can make better handmade pasta in your own kitchen than what's generally served in restaurants, where it's so often tough, or gummy.

And working with the dough – with those gorgeous aromas in the background – is supremely soothing. Even if your old-fashioned Atlas pasta machine has developed a high-pitched squeak from disuse. 

Wanna give it a whirl? Here's now to do it:

Back to our ragù, which is now smelling insanely wonderful. When the duck legs are almost falling-off-the-bone tender, pull them out, take the meat off the bones and put all that tender meat back in. Simmer the ragù a few more minutes – basically, until you can't stand for another minute not to be eating it. Even feckless teenagers, home, say for winter break from college, won't be able to stay away.

Drop your gorgeous pasta in boiling salted water. Leave it just two or three minutes – the fresh stuff cooks really quickly. Now pull it out gently with tongs, and drop it into the simmering ragù. Let it cook there another minute, so it soaks up all that incredible flavor. Turn it into a serving bowl or platter. Drop some chopped Italian parsley on top. Or not. 

Pour the red wine. Pass the parm with a grater at the table. Prepare to swoon.

Here's the recipe. Call me when you've recovered.