Broccoli and Orachetti

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Although this recipe would probably work fine with any shape pasta, there’s something about orachetti that I just can’t get enough of… maybe it’s the way the tiny little cups grab onto the sauce. Anyway, I sort of slapped this together last night. It was satisfying and very tasty. I used Alton Brown’s idea to steam the broccoli in layers — the stem peeled and then sliced into planks and put on the bottom of the pan to make a sort of platform to keep the florettes out of the hot liquid and just steam. Since I had leftover roasted turkey breast, I added it and flavored it towards the end with crushed sage, but I bet it would be just as good started off with some rashers of bacon, or to go completely vegetarian. This recipe would serve 4, or two hungry people and provide leftovers.

½lb orachetti pasta
1lb broccoli, cut ala Alton Brown
¼c chicken stock or water
2T olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
½lb diced roasted turkey breast
2T butter
rubbed sage, salt, pepper to taste
shredded parmesan

Ok, first I got the water salted and boiling in one pot for the pasta. Then I cut up the broccoli in the manner I described above, and put that in a saucepan with a tight lid along with the chicken stock, and let that steam for a couple of minutes. By now, the water for the pasta was boiling, so I tossed in the orachetti. In a big frying pan, I heated the olive oil and  gently cooked the garlic, which I crushed … though I bet it would be just as good to slice them, and would reduce the chance of it burning. Before the garlic got too brown, I added a ladle of pasta water and a lump of butter. Once melted, in went the turkey and the sage. I let that simmer, and the pasta had become al dente, so I fished it out with a spider and added it to the frying pan, along with a little more pasta water. Lastly, I added the broccoli and the parmesan, and tossed gently, along with a little olive oil to make it “smile.”