Sicilian " Pasta chi Vruoccoli Arriminati"

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For pasta chi vruoccoli arriminati, it's the intentionally overcooked cauliflower that sets the dish apart. Not to be confused with broccoli, Sicily's "broccolo," or "vruocculu" in Palermo dialect, is what we know as cauliflower, and its peak season is in the fall. While most types of cauliflower will work for this recipe, light green varieties, like Romanesco, are ideal.

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Pasta with cauliflower in red, the manner palermitana: creamy, with fried bread, pine nuts and raisins

Pasta with cauliflower in red Sicilian, one of the most traditional recipes of Sicilian cuisine winter. If we were on the island we would call it "pasta chi vruoccoli arriminati", or pasta with cauliflower mixed in a sauce made of onion, anchovies, pine nuts, raisins and tomato paste until it becomes almost a cream.

Now, I'm not a lover of pasta cooked in the oven because it's hard to keep cooking, then I condisco with toast but without firing. But if you want to prepare the classic timbale the manner Palermo, drain the pasta very al dente, conditela, place in a baking dish and sprinkle the surface with toasted bread, then cook for 10-15 minutes in the oven.

This is by far one of the Winter recipes I love the most: you can do it with any type of cauliflower, the White, violet, even the Roman. For the “pasta chi vruoccoli arriminati” in Sicily often they are using the bucatini, but I have a weakness for casarecce, then you choose what you prefer. Try it, you will see that goodness. Have a good day!

PORTIONS: 4

PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes

COOKING TIME: 40 minutes

INGREDIENTS

  • 800 grams of cauliflower

  • 320 grams of pasta (casarecce, bucatini)

  • 50 grams of tomato paste (2 heaping tablespoons)

  • pine nuts and raisins, to taste

  • salt and pepper, to taste

  • extra virgin olive oil, to taste

  • 6 anchovy fillets in salt or oil

  • a small onion

  • Dop Sicilian pecorino grated cheese or seasoned, to taste

  • grated stale bread, to taste

  • Safffon

You start the process by trimming a head of cauliflower into florets and simmering them in salted water until they're tender enough to crush with a wooden spoon. You then add them to a skillet in which chopped onion has been gently cooked with anchovies in olive oil. Scoop some of the water you used to cook the cauliflower into the pan, along with the familiar cast of raisins, toasted pine nuts, and a pinch of saffron*, and bring everything to a simmer. At this stage, that cooking water is doing a lot of heavy lifting: it's helping to break down the cauliflower, plump the raisins, bloom the saffron, and soften the pine nuts.

And now it's "arriminare," or stirring, time.

As the sauce ingredients come to a simmer, get to work with a wooden spoon, stirring, smooshing, and swirling the florets, coaxing them to break down and thicken the liquid in the pan to take on a thick, saucy consistency. While that's happening, you cook the pasta until just shy of al dente in the same cauliflower-cooking water; short, tubular sedani or long bucatini are the shapes of choice. Finish the pasta in the skillet with the sauce, tossing a handful of breadcrumbs in at the last moment to give the sauce extra body, and then topping each serving with a final sprinkling for crunch. The nutty sweetness of the cauliflower plays off the pine nuts and raisins, the savoury anchovies do their thing in the background, and even though it's got close relatives in Palermo, one taste will tell you this is a vegetable pasta unlike any other.

Why It Works

Extended cooking and vigorous stirring make cauliflower break down into a hearty sauce.

Sicilian pantry staples—anchovies, raisins, pine nuts, saffron, and toasted breadcrumbs—strike a characteristic savoury-sweet balance with North African influence.

Tossing the pasta with toasted breadcrumbs helps to achieve the perfect noodle-coating sauce consistency, and a sprinkling of the same crumbs gives the finished pasta a crunchy topping.