I’ve been looking for a way to introduce broccoli rabe to my boys. They’re teenagers now, and their tastes are more developed than when they were short and “yum” and “yuck” were binary, and not part of a continuum. They eat all sorts of weird things now, quite a few of which fill me with awkward pride. But still, there are a couple of items that I haven’t gotten around to introducing for one reason or another.
Broccoli rabe is one of them.
I love the stuff. It’s a variant of broccoli that tastes as if it had spent millennia cracking through compacted soil, nutrient-poor and predator-rich, with ocean brine for rain. Everything about it suggests it evolved to fight its environment, not blend in to grow into fat miniature trees like its bland, heady namesake.
It’s bitter. And in cooking it, you can either give in to that bitterness, steam it and serve it plain; erect barriers to contain it, as in orecchiette pasta with rabe and sausage, which surrounds it with bland pasta and cheese and salty, spicy meat; or play against the bitter by pairing it with something sweet.
Raisins can do a lot. So can balsamic vinegar. But we use raisins in other dishes (cous cous! Lentils!). And I, for one, am glad we have reached the other side of our cultural infatuation with balsamic vinegar. It has its place, but its place is not in everything, and for a while there it was entirely inescapable.
So in the supermarket this afternoon, specifically anointed with the task of picking up a veg for dinner, I came across some beautiful heads of broccoli rabe. And then, an instant later, I was confronted by an absolutely perfect-looking yam.
Okay, I thought, let’s do this.
Vaguely Thanksgiving-like Rabe and Yam
1 pound broccoli rabe
1 large yam
Olive oil
2 shallots
1 tablespoon salt
Chicken or vegetable broth
1/3 to 1/2 cup dried cranberries, sweetened or not
Pomegranate seeds, would be interesting
Salt and pepper, to taste
Set two large saucepans on the stove. Fill one three-quarters full with water and set on high heat to boil.
Trim the thick, woody stalks off the rabe. Discard or save in the freezer for soup, if you do that sort of thing. I used to more than I do now. Set the trimmed rabe aside.
While waiting for the water to boil, put some oil in the second pan, keep the heat very low, dice the shallots, throw in the oil and let them melt into translucence.
Grate half the yam and add the grated yam to the shallots. Stir. Slice the rest of the yam into thin, potato chip-sized pieces. Toss those in and stir.
By now the water in the first pot should be boiling. Add the salt, and then the rabe. Boil uncovered for three minutes.
In the second pot, add chicken or vegetable broth to cover the potatoes and shallots. Bring them to a boil, then cut the heat to a simmer.
After three minutes, the rabe should be bright green and the stalks should pierce easily with a fork. Remove the rabe from the boiling water (either by dumping into a colander in the sink, thus losing the water, or by scooping the rabe out with a porous ladle or other utensil that will get the rabe out while leaving the hot water in the pot, where it can be used for making pasta or rice or some other crazy thing) and add the plants to the potato-onion-broth mix. Stir. Cook down gently, stirring so the bottom doesn’t burn, until the broth has reduced and the mixture can hold its shape in a spoon.
Chop the dried cranberries roughly, just to open them up, and add them in the last couple of minutes, along with a couple of grinds of salt and pepper to bring the flavors to the front. If pomegranate seeds are in season, they would be interesting in place of the cranberries, and would make the whole thing that much more festive. Don’t chop them, though—they’re a mess and take forever to clean up.
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October 19, 2016 at 8:50 am
Leonie Mikele Fogle
Mouth is watering as I read–how did you come up with this recipe? Another good one is cabbage salad with sweet potato or yam cubes, pomegranate seeds, cilantro, toasted filberts and lime dressing (half fresh lime juice, half warmed honey). Had this in a Mexican restaurant in San Antonio–hard to forget, relatively easy to make.
October 19, 2016 at 3:12 pm
Matt Hall
That sounds excellent. I went through a whole period a while back of combining miso and sweet potatoes. If you hit it right, it’s a nice combination.
Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
October 19, 2016 at 1:50 pm
Shirl Sipperley DiGugno
I like your creativity Matt plus I always love to try new recipes . My grandmother was good at taking something from the pantry ( soups or a canned item), several veggies , a meat and make something incredibly out of it all.
October 20, 2016 at 10:01 am
Shirley Carlberg
Matt, thank you for the recipe. Just got back from the store and found the rabe. I also got a regular sweet potato and a small purple sweet potato. I will pick up the remaining ingredients later. We watch Food TV a lot, especially Chopped, and rabe or rapini is used a lot. Lovers of broccoli but never having tried rabe, we are anxious to try it. I have made a couple of your mother’s recipes, so delicious. Again, thanks for sharing.
October 20, 2016 at 4:27 pm
Matt Hall
Hope you like it. It’s an odd mixture, but I felt the sweet and bitter married pretty well.
Feel free to experiment! For instance, a little bit of grated parmesan-type cheese sprinkled on top might bring out some savory flavors.
Let me know how it goes!
October 24, 2016 at 2:14 pm
Shirley Carlberg
Matt, I just made this recipe. Oh boy, is it ever delicious. My husband can’t stop snacking on it. Tonight, will sprinkle Parmesan on the dish (he’s a cheesaholic) . Like you, he loves to cook, creating recipes and adding his touch to printed ones. Compile your recipes and publish a cookbook, We would be first in line to buy it. Your mother’s straw hat is safely put away for winter in its original shipping box. I love it and wore it all summer.
October 24, 2016 at 10:43 pm
Matt Hall
Glad you liked it! I had a worrisome thought the other day: what if people make it and hate it? I mean, it really was an experiment, not a tested and true recipe. Glad to hear you had good results.
And: If the hat fits, wear it!
July 3, 2017 at 2:35 pm
Nina Ogle
Enjoyed reading this! According to what I’ve read about your mother, she loved to cook so you must have inherited that talent from her. As someone who can barely make a peanut butter sandwich without a recipe, I admire your adventurous culinary spirit!