A Sweet-Savory Cauliflower Pasta Dish Unlike Any Other

Sicilian delicacies is legendary for its mixture of savory, candy, and bitter flavors, proof of the heavy affect on the island of centuries of North African and Spanish rule. To provide that mixture of flavors, Sicilian cooks flip to pantry elements like anchovies, saffron, pine nuts, and raisins, and toasted breadcrumbs. In Palermo, the area’s capital, the best way these staples are used collectively is clear in a trio of pasta dishes: pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines), pasta c’anciuova e muddica atturrata (pasta with anchovies and toasted breadcrumbs), and pasta chi vruoccoli arriminati (pasta with stirred cauliflower).

My buddy Salvatore Agusta, a local Palermitano and sommelier who additionally runs a enterprise organizing street food tours within the metropolis, compares this grouping of pastas to Rome’s Massive 4: “It is just like how carbonara, gricia, amatriciana, and cacio e pepe share black pepper, Pecorino Romano, and guanciale, with various quantities of every and additions of different elements like tomato or egg to attain dishes that style distinctly totally different, but in addition echo and complement one another. In Palermo, now we have our elements—anchovies for umami, saffron for floralness, pine nuts for nutty bitterness, raisins for sweetness, and breadcrumbs for his or her salty crunch. Combining them with sardines, or tomato estratto, or on this case cauliflower, offers us three distinctive pastas with shared commonalities.”

For pasta chi vruoccoli arriminati, it is the deliberately overcooked cauliflower that units the dish aside. To not be confused with broccoli, Sicily’s “broccolo,” or “vruocculu” in Palermo dialect, is what we all know as cauliflower, and its peak season is within the fall. Whereas most kinds of cauliflower will work for this recipe, mild inexperienced varieties, like Romanesco, are ideally suited.

The Cauliflower

You begin the method by trimming a head of cauliflower into florets and simmering them in salted water till they’re tender sufficient to crush with a wood spoon. You then add them to a skillet through which chopped onion has been gently cooked with anchovies in olive oil. Scoop among the water you used to cook dinner the cauliflower into the pan, together with the acquainted solid of raisins, toasted pine nuts, and a pinch of saffron*, and convey every part to a simmer. At this stage, that cooking water is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting: it is serving to to interrupt down the cauliflower, plump the raisins, bloom the saffron, and soften the pine nuts. And now it is “arriminare,” or stirring, time.

Salvatore additionally recommends including a pinch of fennel pollen, which enhances the floral notes of the saffron (I examined this recipe with and with out it, and it is an important optionally available addition).

Stirring, Smooshing, Swirling

Because the sauce elements come to a simmer, get to work with a wood spoon, stirring, smooshing, and swirling the florets, coaxing them to interrupt down and thicken the liquid within the pan to tackle a thick, saucy consistency. Whereas that is taking place, you cook dinner the pasta till simply shy of al dente in the identical cauliflower-cooking water; quick, tubular sedani or lengthy bucatini are the shapes of alternative. End the pasta within the skillet with the sauce, then high every serving with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs for crunch. The nutty sweetness of the cauliflower performs off the pine nuts and raisins, the savory anchovies do their factor within the background, and despite the fact that it is received shut family in Palermo, one style will let you know it is a vegetable pasta not like some other.