Broccoli and cauliflowers can turn your kitchen into a green prairie…
It’s time for a classic of my childhood: broccoli soup with cut spaghetti. My first memory of me going to a grocery on my own was at the age of 6 years old. At that time there was a local mini-market “dal Sig. Enzo – Enzo’s” on my neighborhood that had a little corner with fresh veggies. With less of 1.000 lire (today would be around 50 euro cents) you could buy a nice cauliflower. And with a cauliflower, you can cook many different and delicious recipes in Sicily! It’s also important to point that in Sicily we swap the word broccoli (broccolo) with cauliflower (cavolfiore), so when we say broccoli we mean cauliflower and vice-versa. It was already the time for me to have my own independence on cooking, so observing others cooking (like my grandma) was for me crucial. In the cold days, my mom used to cook this recipe (that I’ve changed a bit using a romanesco broccoli and adding some ginger for more spiciness and miso paste). It was really comforting coming back from the school to have a warm dish waiting for you, and honestly, this soup is even more delicious when cold, because all the flavors have time to set and you can appreciate more the light sweetness of the cauliflower. To get the perfect savor I recommend to add the salt a bit a time, especially after adding the pasta.
In Italy, we have a big cult for soup with cut spaghetti: you can make your own simply breaking them with your hands (you will love the sounds) or buy them already cut!
Broccoli romanesco pasta soup
Ingredients
- 1 Broccoli romanesco
- ginger (fresh)
- 1 onion
- 1 tbs miso
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 1/2 cup cut spaghetti
- 2 tbs miso
- 2L hot water
- 1 tbs salt
- fresh micro-greens for topping (optional)
- pepper
Directions
- cut the broccoli in florets, remove the hardest part
- Saute on a pot the onion and ginger with olive oil until soft and gold
- dissolve the miso paste with a bit of warm water
- add 2L of warm water and the miso to the pot
- add the florets and cook with the lid on for about 10 minutes (medium heat)
- add salt and pepper
- add the pasta and cook according to the instructions on the package
- serve warm, top with fresh olive oil, pepper, and micro-greens.