Second chance at raab

If there is a theme to this blog, it might be 'second chances.' There are foods that, on the first try, I loved. I'm not talking about foods I grew up eating but stuff I discovered later in life (post high school), like Thai and Vietnamese food, kale, polenta, steel-cut oats, chana masala. Then there are some that I didn't like at first but am so glad I tried again, because now I love them: goat cheese, cilantro, beets... and broccoli rabe (or raab, I've seen it spelled both ways).

The first time I ate broccoli rabe, I thought I would like it because it's a gorgeous, green veggie (one of my favorite types of food) but I was unprepared for the unusual, bitter taste. I thought I was eating something that had gone bad. And I said so.

'Ew, I think this went bad,' I said to my cousins, who I had joined for dinner.

They had gotten broccoli rabe from the prepared food section of some place like Dean and Deluca. My cousins, being more sophisticated than me, tried it and declared it was fine, in fact, delicious. What did my naive palate know anyways? It was not until years later that I re-discovered broccoli rabe (at a delitaria, no less)--this time, smothered in olive oil, garlic and salt, the bitter taste did not overwhelm me, because I was expecting it. I was hooked.

Cooking it, on the other hand, was another matter completely. My early attempts were a disaster. I tried to saute it in olive oil with garlic but it wouldn't wilt enough and it lost its vibrant green color. I had more or less given up trying to cook it myself, resorting to just looking at it longingly at the grocery store. Then, very recently, my food guru Mark Bittman wrote about broccoli rabe. Not only that, he had a video to go along with it. The method that I had never tried before was to blanch the broccoli rabe first. Ah ha. Now I was hooked on cooking it.


I was so excited about having figured out how to cook broccoli rabe that at the farmer's market, I bought two bunches (I was also excited that the market even had broccoli rabe since it's early spring). They were being sold one for $4 or two for $6. I am a sucker for a 'bargain' so I bought two. It didn't really seem like that much. Then I walked home with them. Every block they got heavier and heavier. There was so much, it completely filled my sink to the very top (that's about 2/3 of it above). I was faced with my usual dilemma--what was I going to do with all this broccoli rabe before it went bad?


I set about preparing both bunches all at once because. Cooked broccoli rabe seems to holds up pretty well in the fridge and can be dumped into a pan and sauteed right before you want to eat it.

• I took a few handfuls at a time which had been washed (it was so fresh that the ends did not need to be trimmed at all, clearly having been just cut);
• dumped them into some nearly boiling water (didn't have the patience to wait for a complete boil);
• swirled them around for about 1-2 minutes;
• transferred to a bowl with cold water (all the cookbooks say to transfer to a bowl of ice water to 'shock' the broccoli rabe but I don't have enough ice for that so the bowl was more for transporting to the sink than really cooling down the greens);
• then ran cold water over the broccoli rabe to fully cool down.

Then started the process again with another handful. But what to do about draining the mounds of broccoli rabe that were piling up? I looked up for inspiration and, lo and behold, there was my enormous baking rack that I use to cool baked goods like cakes and cookies.

It was perfect.


I was able to spread out all of the cooked broccoli rabe on the baking rack to drain.
Afterwards, I just packed them away into storage containers and popped them into the fridge.


Okay, no I didn't. In a display of some astonishing Type A-plus-ness, I separated the broccoli rabe into three categories. Clockwise from top, there is a pile of:

• all the loose strands of broccoli rabe--the thin, almost spinach-like pieces;
• the tougher ends of the stalks, which I guess could be thrown out but I like the crunchiness;
• and the 'perfect' broccoli rabe, long pieces with lots of leaves and those broccoli-esque buds where they get their name

I did this because they cook at different rates, so when I saute them again, I wanted to be able to add the tougher stalks first, then the more leafy parts.
But there is so much else that can be done with them, now that they've all been so nicely apportioned. I've prepared it with chicken sausage (to serve with pasta or polenta); I've added the thin strands to my Asian chicken noodle soup; and I've had it cold, straight out of the fridge with some olive oil, salt and pepper, as a side dish...

...in this case, to yet another failed attempt at pasta carbonara. Carbonara, I will conquer you!