Chris Cosentino – Inspired by Local Culinary Heritage

Pasta recipe with broccoli

To me when people are cooking at home, unless they're baking recipes or guidelines, not everybody has the same ingredients that restaurants have. Everybody has different markets and different seasons, and it's really about adapting to what's available in their moment and in their place.
Then it's really about learning to think on your feet and know what flavors work together. So, something very simple as broccoli. You know, people think of broccoli as like this green tree that you get a giant wedge of it on a plate at like a steakhouse. But there's so many varieties of broccoli. There's broccoli de Cicco, there's broccolini, there's broccoli rapini, there's sweet broccoli. Then, you have all these other broccoli's, there's arugula rabe, which is a broccoli. You have all these like sprouting broccolis purple sprouting broccoli. Then it's such a simple thing as taking a penne pasta, and in the pan you have very basic things, you need garlic, you need olive oil, you need chili flakes, lemon zest, lemon juice, and you can use broccoli, but you chop it, you peel the stems and you chop it up and you start by cooking the broccoli stems and then you feed in the garlic and then you start adding your pasta to it. Once you add your pasta, then you add pasta water, then you add olive oil. You add the broccoli tops, which are the soft tender bits that cook really quickly. So it's really about understanding a product, then it boils down to timing and being prepared in advance and having all the stuff cut properly.