Michele Rasore
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Copyright 2007 Michele Rasore.
All rights reserved.
The usual stuff.

Spaghetti with broccoli and ginger (main course)

Ingredients for 2:
The omnipresent spaghetti, 100gr per head (I'm afraid the choice is restricted to the following brands in order: Garofalo, La Molisana, De Cecco, Buitoni), half fresh broccoli, a bit of ginger, chilli proper pepper, 2 garlic cloves, extra virgin olive oil.

For the ones of you who are already reaching for the bottle I'm afraid there won't be any alcohol involved in this cooking task. If you feel strongly about that you might want to go to the Red Wine Risotto recipe.

First thing to do is dealing with the broccoli. It's pretty easy, they don't walk around, they won't complain if you cut them up, they are basically at your mercy. You need to get rid of the stem and end up with a handful of florets. Once you have the florets it's time for a good, healthy, old fashioned steam. Find a metal colander somewhere and put it on the pot where you are boiling the water to cook the pasta. Cover the colander with something (ideally a lid, but if you don't have it you can use a pan or a dish) and let the steam do all the work for you. It should take in between 5 and 10 minutes to get the broccoli steamed depending on the dimensions of the florets. Please keep on the boil the water you used to steam the broccoli for you will use it to cook the spaghetti later on. Check the broccoli's degree of crunchiness using a knife or a fork, beware because you are going to be on the exact border where the insanely undercooked and obviously overcooked meet. Cooking broccoli can be a tricky business. Once you have found your way around the crunchy yet cooked broccoli conundrum your next step is to put them in a pan with some extra-virgin olive oil, a clove of garlic and some chilli pepper. On high fire give them a good toss for a couple of minutes without burning them, so that they will pick up a garlicky nuance. If you master this phase you are pretty much done with it.
Go back to your pot with the boiling water and get ready to throw in a 100g circa of spaghetti per head (it should be enough if you are having an appetizer or a salad aside). You might notice that your water will look greenish and I urge you to be really happy about that, it means that your spaghetti will absorb a bit of broccoli's taste since the very first moments of being cooked. Ah! Salt the water, don't forget to salt the water. Be sensible about it, you need a bit of salt in the thing otherwise it will come out really bland and tasteless. Put two or tablespoons in (or maybe less, I'm sure you'll be able to work it out). Taste the water, it shouldn't taste like sipping seawater but you need to feel that there is a bit of salt in there. Put a tiny bit of salt on the broccoli too. And please don't resort to using a 3 inches diameter pot not even if you are cooking just for two. There is nothing more disheartening and depressing than cooking some spaghetti with a Smurf kit. No mini pots, no mini spoons, no mini nothing! be a bit american and go for an extra large pot. You want room for your spaghetti, you want to nurture your dinner in a bold environment.
So get a nice spacious pot, make sure that there is plenty of water, throw the spaghetti in and stir abundantly so that you will avoid the spaghetti sticking to each other or getting entangled in an inextricable, senseless ball. Now get a small bit of ginger, peel it and chop it finely and..leave it aside.
When the pasta is cooked AL DENTE get it out from the pot into the colander and drain it quickly, don't let it there drying. Put the spaghetti in the same pan where your broccoli is waiting and add a bit of extravirgin olive oil. Add the ginger and stir fry for in between 30 seconds and 1 minute and then serve.