Half-Ziti with Cime di Rapa, Salami Bites, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Bread Crumbs & Salted Ricotta
If you were to add 3 halves together, the sum would be more than a whole obviously- so that would mean... that I am not very good at mathematics, right? Wrong! Because I made this delicious dish of pasta this evening and the 3 main ingredients were all split in half... and the result was wholly terrific!
Ziti pasta, as fun and delicious as it may be, is really difficult to eat! Almost impossible even! So I snapped them in half to make them at least a little more manageable. Now, those delicious little salami are absolutely no problem to eat- but cutting them in half helps to get them to soften a little and to give off more flavor to the rest of the dish. And of course- you can not make sun-dried tomatoes without cutting them in half!
Ziti pasta, as fun and delicious as it may be, is really difficult to eat! Almost impossible even! So I snapped them in half to make them at least a little more manageable. Now, those delicious little salami are absolutely no problem to eat- but cutting them in half helps to get them to soften a little and to give off more flavor to the rest of the dish. And of course- you can not make sun-dried tomatoes without cutting them in half!
So, these 3 main ingredients, along with the cime di rapa, bread crumbs and salted ricotta cheese all came together to become one harmonious and truly wonderful dish of good old home cooking! And it was probably only half as much work as you might imagine!
I started off by bringing the pasta water to the boil and whilst that was happening, I made use of the time by cutting the little balls of salami in half, slicing-up the sun dried tomatoes and finely chopping the cime di rapa.
As soon as the water came to the boil, I added the pasta and the greens, along with a good pinch of salt, then turned down the heat and let it simmer away for the next 10 minutes.
Whilst the pasta was boiling gently in the background, I toasted a couple of tablespoons of bread crumbs along with a little salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. As soon as they were crispy and golden brown, I set them to one side to cool off and then popped the halved salami and the sliced sun-dried tomatoes, so that they could start sizzling away too.
After 10 minutes of boiling, the ziti were not quite cooked enough for eating- they ARE quite a bit thicker than ordinary pasta, so I poured off most of the water and then added them to the salami and tomato slices, along with a good amount of the remaining water for the pasta to finish cooking in.
I turned up the heat to high, added a nice fresh grating of nutmeg, a little pepper and a drizzle of olive oil and basically let the remaining water boil off and reduce down, cooking into the pasta and blending together all of those good flavors in the pan.
Being careful not to snap or break the pasta by the time it was ready, just 4-5 minutes later, I then poured it out into a serving dish and spread all of the goodies on top, then added a generous sprinkle of the crunchy bread crumbs just to make things even more delicious... but of course there was more to come!
The finishing touches were a nice sprinkle of freshly grated salted Ricotta and last few drops of olive oil- and now the dish really was ready for serving and was just about as delicious as a plate of pasta could be!
This dish was basked on the classic combination of pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage, but again, I worked with what I had at home in the fridge and by choosing things that went well together, let the ingredients do all the work for me... and I think that is something that all of you may well want to try out to!
I think you'll like it! In fact- I would like to be so bold as to say I am sure you will!
Go ahead and prove me wrong if you doubt it- haha! Enjoy!
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