Pasta with rapini greens, ricotta cheese, and cherry tomatoes

• 10 minutes to prepare • 15 minutes to cook • Serves 4

 

10 MINUTES

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may be detecting a pattern.
I seem to gravitate towards recipes that include just a few simple ingredients – pasta, a vegetable and a combination of cheeses.

This latest is another winner.
Especially if your fridge contains just few rapini stems left from another pasta dish, some tomatoes almost too ripe and ricotta cheese soon to expire...and it's Sunday morning and you are still trapped in your pyjamas, ha ha!
Buon appetito.

Here's what you will need for the 4-serving recipe:

320 g penne pasta
300 g rapini greens
1 clove garlic
8 anchovy fillets in oil
10 cherry tomatoes
200 g ricotta cheese
50 g Pecorino cheese
salt
EVO oil

1. Start by cleaning the rapini: remove damaged leaves and the external stems which are hard and fibrous. Keep aside the inner stems
2. Take the stems and free all the rapini florets from the core, one by one. Remove the outer part of the core and cut the internal part, white and tender, into small pieces
3. Boil water in a pot, add salt and once started to bubble, pour the pasta. Follow the time instructions reported on the package
4. Meanwhile, prepare the pasta sauce: in a pan pour 3 tablespoons of EVO oil, add the garlic clove unchopped to flavor the oil. Make it toast over medium heat until it becomes golden, then remove it, turn off the heat and add the anchovy fillets. Stir well until they melt
5. Wash cherry tomatoes and cut them by half
6. Add rapini stems in the pot with pasta, and stir well. It will take about 3 minutes for the stems to be ready
7. Pick up a ladle of cooking water and keep aside, then drain well the pasta and the rapini greens. Pour them into the pan with the anchovy sauce
8. Add tomatoes and ricotta cheese and stir over high heat for a few minutes ; if pasta looks dry, add some cooking water. Then, turn off the heat and add some grated Pecorino cheese on top. Serve immediately!

In the following, Nutrition Facts of this dish are indicated. Data is provided per serving.