Beth Fortune's Rapini with Sausage and Golden Roasted Potatoes

What an odd little recipe. I mean, it's good and all, and will be feeding me for at least three out of the five days in this work week, but as I puttered around my kitchen last night, blanching and draining and chopping and roasting and flipping and blanching again, I wondered if Beth Fortune hadn't possibly complicated things just a little too much.

Beth says that to tame the bitter edge of greens like rapini, you should first blanch and then stew them. But why take the edge off? Aren't you then better off just buying broccoli? Don't people like rapini precisely because of that bitterness that plays so well with flavors like smoky sausage or piquant hot pepper? I know I do.

To make this recipe, first you have to boil a big pot of water in which you blanch your rapini for a few minutes before draining them, cooling them, and chopping them into bite-size pieces. These par-cooked rapini then get stewed for an additional 15 minutes later on in the recipe, along with a browning onion and some fragrant paprika. All delicious, I tell you. But those rapini would have tasted just as good had they gone in the pot raw and stewed that way.

Then, the whole parboiling of potatoes before sliding them into the oven to roast? Unnecessarily complicated, in my book (as was, incidentally, the whole heating of the sheetpan, and the warming of the olive oil, garlic and paprika in said hot sheetpan). Why not just toss raw, cubed potatoes with olive oil, minced garlic, and paprika and put that pan in the oven 40 minutes before dinnertime?

I honestly don't know. (Oh, and russet potatoes? Not my favorite. Too floury. Aren't they better as baked potatoes served alongside your beef stew in a diner or something? I think I prefer Yukon Gold.)

What I ended up with was a perfectly fine Monday night dinner. Stewy greens studded with browned rounds of sausage (I used a chicken sausage instead of linguica or chorizo, I don't know, for lightness sake) surrounded by soft and fragrant potatoes that practically glowed with their dusting of paprika and garlic. But I had twice as many dishes to do than if the recipe had been more streamlined, which - somehow - irked me.

Oh, whatever. I'm such a complainer sometimes. Yawn.

I actually think the most interesting recipe in the article is the Caribbean-flavored crab stew, but something about soaking salt cod for hours and spending money that I don't have on crab just didn't jive with my idea of a cozy homemade dinner last night. If anyone else is feeling adventurous and flush with cash, would you let me know how it is?

Rapini with Sausage and Golden Roasted Potatoes
Serves 4

1 bunch rapini, ends of stems trimmed (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4 -inch cubes (about 3 cups, diced)
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3/4 teaspoon paprika, divided
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chopped onions
2 links (about 10 ounces) linguiça or Spanish chorizo, cut into 1/2 -inch cubes
1/4 cup chicken stock

1. Bring a large, wide-rimmed pot of salted water to a boil. (Use about 1 tablespoon of salt for every 2 quarts of water.) Place a baking sheet inside the oven and heat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Blanch the rapini in the boiling water until just tender, about 2 minutes. Remove with tongs or a strainer and place in a colander to drain, but do not discard the cooking water. Bring the water back to a boil. When the rapini is cool enough to handle, trim it into 2-inch pieces.

3. Cook the potatoes in the boiling water until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes in a colander, shaking them to break up the edges a bit. Wipe any potato bits out of the blanching pot and return it to the stove.

4. Carefully remove the hot baking sheet from the oven. Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil on the sheet and mix one-half teaspoon of paprika and the garlic into the oil. Put the potatoes on the sheet, stirring to thoroughly coat. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt and a little pepper. Bake 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the potatoes have a nice crust.

5. Heat the remaining olive oil in the pot on the stove over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until golden and tender, about 8 minutes. Add the remaining one-fourth teaspoon paprika; stir to mix thoroughly. Add the sausage, stir to coat with the oil, and cook 30 seconds. Add the rapini and chicken stock. Stir to mix the sausage and onions with the rapini, cook over medium heat until the rapini is tender, about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. To serve, place 1 cup rapini mixture in the center of a warmed soup bowl. Surround with the roasted potatoes.

Comments

[The Menu is Not the Meal]

Luisa -

You are right about this recipe overdoing the rapini. The bitterness is essential to its flavor, as is true for most bitter greens; if you don't like bitterness in your greens, there's always chard or collards.

In my opinion, any recipe that calls for long cooking of rapini is bogus. The best way to cook this green is to quickly blanch it in salt water until softened, shock it in ice water, and then add it to a dish at the last minute, cooking it only long enough to bring it up to temp. Any longer cooking turns that nice bright emerald into a drab army green, a sure sign that it has been shorn of flavor, bite, and nutrients.

My favorite method of cooking rapini is to treat as above and then toss it in warm, garlic-and-red-pepper-flake-infused EVOO. A dash of sea salt and you are in rapini rapture.

Andrew

[Tanna]

To look at the photo is heaven, to read what you went through to create what looks simple, certainly make me wonder about putting it on the table.

[Jeff]

Gotta go with recipes that have realistic cooking expectations

[aileen]

Hi Louisa - I agree entirely with the rapini, but..... I do like to parboil my roasted potatoes. It was an accident of sorts the first time I did it. A last minute dash to the store in the middle of cooking dinner was perfectly timed to permit me to discover and buy-out a [rare] shipment of fresh herbs. I was giddy with the glee of finding fresh herbs and I guess compelled (maybe by guilt at being so selfish as to have bought _every_last_package_ of rosemary and sage) to put my treasure to immediate use. So, halfway through the boiling of potatoes for mash, I drained the potatoes, used forks to pull the potatoes into rough chunks, tossed them with rosemary, sage, garlic, and olive oil, and tossed the lot into the oven with the intention of putting herb roasted potatoes on the dinner table. I expected to celebrate my discovery of fresh herbs. But I ended up celebrating the discovery that I love how the parboiling produces roasted potatoes with an especially crispy, crunchy, herby exterior and creamy center. But I agree about the dishes part - so the intentional parboiling happens just about as rarely as the discovery of fresh herbs at the store!

[Julie]

I've played around with it both way and these day I always blanch rapini for about two minutes (stems a little longer, tops a little less) because I find that if I don't I have to stew it so long before it's tender enough that its texture and color are not as good. Then I normally saute with garlic, hot pepper, etc. for a few minutes. It always has a nice bitter edge.

But I notice in a Marcella Hazan recipe for rapini she instructs you to first parboil for 15 minutes and then cook it with olive oil, garlic, etc for another 5 minutes so apparently there are those who like it that way.

Marcella Hazan also says to peel the stems first although I never bother with that.

[ann]

i've become a convert to parboiling taters too
dinner has been late far too many times b/c i misjudged how long the darn spuds were going to take roasting in the oven
eitherway, i like the combo of rabe, sausage and potatoes with paprika... yum! must get through move so i can cook again!

[Abby]

Maybe the potatoes are parboiled because of what kind the recipe calls for? Though I agree with you about the russet/baked potato thing.

If I want to eat potatoes other than jacketed ones, I prefer something a bit more golden, buttery (looking).

[Paige]

Hey Luisa--I made something similar last night, but with pasta, and no parboiling. Extremely quick and easy, with minimal effort...give this one a try:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/11009

[aliza]

I have never had rapini before, but with all these comments i'm intrigued to try it. Probably not this since my tastes usually agree with yours, but something else. Any suggestions?

[Luisa]

Aliza - I liked this dish, just not the fussiness of the prep. Try it, with my changes. Otherwise, for a long time I was obsessed with just steaming rapini and eating them drizzled with olive oil and fresh lemon juice. Or, you can always saute them with some sliced garlic and olive oil. Rapini are so good, and so healthy, too!

[Annette]

My husband and I love rapini and this recipe is one of the best! I didn't mind the prep and I felt like we were eating in an Italian restaurant. It's that good!!