Have I already said that I’m in love with Mediterranean cooking? Recently, I stumbled upon a traditional Palermo recipe for pasta with broccoli which called for pine nuts and raisins. What a lovely idea! Pine nuts and raisins, as many other nuts and dried fruits, are highly cherished ingredients of a variety of Turkish pilav (rice) dishes, but I’ve never thought of including them in a pasta sauce. The sweetness of the raisins breaks through the mild saltiness of the cheese, and the pine nuts add a bit of entertaining crunchiness in your plate. These two small delicacies transform the simple pasta with broccoli into a special dish which you would like to share with your friends. The following ingredients produce two portions which suffice for two ravenous or three regularly hungry persons.
Ingredients:
250 grams tagliatelle
1 small broccoli
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
2 tablespoons of raisins
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
3-4 cloves of garlic (optional)
1 small yellow onion
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
Gouda cheese (to top)
salt and black pepper to taste
Preparations:
1. Cut the broccoli into florets, wash them and put into a pan with boiling water. Cook them for about 8 minutes, drain and put aside. Don’t throw away the water in which you cooked the broccoli but use it to cook your pasta.
2. To cook the pasta, follow the directions on the package: in this recipe we used egg-based tagliatelle which was cooked al dente in six minutes. Set aside half cup of the broccoli water in order to add it to the sauce.
2. For the sauce, peel the onion and the garlic, wash, and chop them finely. Wash the raisins and set aside.
3. Add the olive oil in a skillet on medium to high heat, saute the onion, the garlic and the pine nuts for about 2 minutes (or until the pine nuts start turning golden brown). Stir in the tomato paste.
4. Finally, add the broccoli florets and the raisins to the mixture. Stir a few times and add the half cup of the broccoli water. Add salt and pepper to taste: since we used home-made salted tomato paste, we did not add any salt here. Simmer for a few minutes until you obtain the desired density for the sauce, and then turn off the heat.
5. Combine the cooked and drained pasta with the broccoli, raisins and pine-nut mixture. Top with grated Gouda cheese (or another kind of yellow cheese which you have at home: cheddar, parmigiano, Turkish kaşar, Bulgarian kashkaval).
Enjoy!
Tagliatelle with broccoli, raisins, pine nuts and Gouda cheese
Tagliatelle en face
Kitchen Press 
eli
February 5, 2011
bakıorum artık logolu resimleriniz bile var :):)