Pasta with Broccoli Rabe, Garlic Scapes and Anchovies

It's taken years, but I finally made an anchovy aficionado out of the old husband. Oh, I've tried before, with stealthy insertions of the salty fish into Caesar Salads, minced onto pizza pies and tucked into pastas, but I was always discovered. Not until I melted a tin of anchovies into a luscious and decidedly unsalty base for a supper pasta with Broccoli Rabe and some of our bountiful supply of homegrown garlic scapes did I succeed in winning over my Dan to the anchovy side.

When anchovies are cooked down over a low flame, they lose their super salinity and gain a mellow, earthy flavor that was the perfect foil to the bitter Broccoli Rabe greens. This dish was so successful, I've made it twice since, and Dan has even cleaned out the cupboard of my tinned anchovy stash, so I believe I have an anchovy convert on my hands now.

It's a quick and simple pasta dish and one that I will pass on to you should you covet a hearty pasta dish with once-sharp flavors that are delightfully mellowed after cooking.

Pasta with Broccoli Rabe, Garlic Scapes and Anchovies

1/2 bunch broccoli rabe, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 lb. fettuccine

1 tin anchovies

10 garlic scapes, chopped

Olive oil

Pinch of hot pepper flakes

Grated Romano cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste (taste first; you made not need to add any salt with the saltiness of the anchovies)


Cook fettuccine until al dente. Drain and rinse with warm water. Set aside.

Heat a teaspoon or so of olive oil in a medium saucepan. Add chopped garlic scapes and stir over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Add anchovies and their oil and break up with a wooden spoon, stirring until they melt and coat the scapes. Add chopped broccoli rabe and stir all around. Cook until leaves are wilted and broccoli rabe is crisp-tender, about 7-8 minutes. Add a little water and cover pan to steam for another minute or two.

Add hot pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste. Mix with your cooked pasta and toss to coat. Garnish with grated cheese.

Serve hot to 6-8 persons.

I am sending a plate of this toothsome pasta over to Helen of Fuss Free Flavours, who is this week's host for Presto Pasta Nights. This weekly event was started by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast and is a great showcase for noodly dishes. Helen will have the roundup for Presto Pasta Nights #221 posted after the July 7 deadline.

Roasting Up Some Garlic Scapes for WHB #238

I am delighted to announce that The Crispy Cook is once again the guest host of Weekend Herb Blogging (Number 238!), a weekly blog event that celebrates all posts herbaceous, vegelicious and fruitastic. Weekend Herb Blogging was started by Kalyn's Kitchen and has been organized by Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once for the last year.



From now until Sunday, June 20, 2010 I will be happy to accept recipes featuring plant ingredients (herbs, vegetables, fruits, seeds, stems, flowers, etc.) Entries must be submitted by:

* 5 pm Sunday - New York City Time (EST)
* 3pm Sunday - Utah Time
* 10pm Sunday - London Time
* 11pm Sunday - Rome Time
* 9am Monday - Melbourne (Aus) DS Time.

Your post can be informative, spotlight a particular ingredient and/or include a recipe where your chosen ingredient is one of the primary ingredients in the recipe. WHB posts must be written specifically for this blog event and may not be cross-posted in other events. Your post must include a link to The Crispy Cook and to the WHB rules page.

If you have a great veggie recipe to share this week, please send your posts to oldsaratogabooks AT gmail DOT com with WHB#218 in the subject line and the following details:

Your name Your Blog/URL
Your Post URL
Your Location
Attach a Photo: 250px wide

For my contribution to this week's WHB edition, I turned to what's flying out of the Crispy Garden, and this week it is garlic scapes. Scapes are the flowering stalks that emerge from the garlic plant and are trimmed if the home gardener or farmer wants the garlic plant to save all its plant energy for making a juicy and delicious garlic bulb to be harvested next month. I planted a boat load of garlic last November and have a handsome crop of various varieties of garlic that have been sending up scapes for the past week or so.

We've been using them just like scallions, chopping them into stir-fries and whizzing them up into Herbed Cream Cheese and Creamy Garlic Scape Dressing. They taste like a mild garlic and as you can see below we have a a real abundance of scapes.



I did a little Internet research to see what other ways cooks were using for their scapes and found this blog post gem in which the fanatical scape-lover author and self-described Crazy CSA Lady provides seven fabulous ways to cook with garlic scapes. This is followed by many more tantalizing comments in which other scape nuts mention different ways to use their beloved alliums. One commenter talked about roasting them so that is what I did, tossing them with olive oil, salt and pepper and then roasting them in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes, stirring twice.



The roasted scapes are nice and crispy at their pointed little ends (though you must be careful not to skewer the inside of your mouth when you fork them in) and have a mild roasted garlic flavor. We ate them over green salads and as a pasta garnish and I still have others to use later on. Perhaps I will chop some up and freeze them to use later. Let me know if you have other fabulous ideas for roasted scapes.

Looking forward to seeing what's cookin' in your kitchen this week. I've already had several cool WHB submissions and can't wait for more to include in the roundup.