By Diane
Before moving to Italy, pasta was a meal to be eaten with tomato sauce! No more but, in my early years in Italy, I was to discover that pasta can be eaten with any type of sauce, fish, tomato, meat,veggies, nearly anything you like. I first discover the green pesto so-called “Pesto alla Genovese” I believe it first appeared in Genoa. It is made of basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, coarse salt, hard cheese, and olive oil blended all together. It was and still is one of my favorite condiments for pasta.
Sometime later, I was to discover broccoli as a veggie (in my homeland, we do not have broccoli). At a friend’s house, she made pasta with broccoli and I immediately fell in love but it would take some years before I found my own way of eating both and really enjoying them. So here is my version of pasta with broccoli, which I call the false pesto.
- 500gr of broccoli
- 250 gr of pasta (I prefer spaghetti, but any works fine)
- Garlic
- Hot Chilli pepper
- Parmesan
- Olive oil
How do you make it? It is simple. I cleaned and cut the broccoli into medium/small pieces. Put water as usual in a big pan and brought it to boil. Added the broccoli once the water was boiling. To help with the smell of cooking broccoli if you do not like it, add a spoon of vinegar. Let it boil for about 2 to 4 minutes before adding the pasta and depending on what type of pasta you are cooking. In my case, I went for spaghetti that is cooked in 12mn (al dente). I have added the spaghetti after 3mn and left it
to cook together. When the spaghetti was cooked al dente, I drained off the water. In the saucepan, I added 2 spoons of olive oil, minced garlic, and hot chili pepper and at last the spaghetti. Stir on low heat for a few seconds. Get your plates and serve and garnish with Parmesan cheese. And bon appetit!