Broccolini Pasta with Garlicky Breadcrumbs – Satisfying, Multi-Textured Dinner

While I have a go-to broccoli rabe with pasta recipe, as readers of this blog know, I get bored easily and always want to try new approaches.  

Enter Milk Street's Orecchiette with Broccolini.  While I didn't have orecchiette, I was intrigued by their garlic-infused panko breadcrumbs and cooking the broccolini, which I was able to procure instead of broccoli rabe, separately from the pasta for presumptively deeper flavor.

The result was fantastic.  In contrast to our standard approach, the garlickly breadcrumbs added a great flavor and texture to the pasta and the sautéed broccolini remained crunchy.  The final dish was also less oily than our standard approach, which I appreciated because it made the pasta seem healthier and less heavy / fatty.  I also omitted a shaved parmesan topping because the dish was so good on it's own!

I modified the proportions of the dish to accommodate the 10 oz. of pasta I had and slightly less than one pound of broccolini.  I used 3 cloves of minced garlic and 3 cloves of sliced garlic, and reduced the pasta cooking / sauce water to 4.25 cups, which may have been too much (more on that below).  I also omitted the anchovies because I am vegetarian, and didn't notice it's omission at all.

You start by preparing the garlicky panko breadcrumbs.  Simply cook the garlic in olive oil in a medium pot, and then stir in the breadcrumbs until they are fragrant and lightly browned.

Then cook the chopped broccolini in the same pot.  Despite the multiple cooking steps for this dish, it's use of only one cooking pot and relatively short cook times makes this a weeknight appropriate meal.

And then yes, in the same pot used for the panko and the broccolini, bring a relatively small amount of water to boil before adding the pasta.  As stated above, I reduced the 5 cups called for in the recipe to 4.25 cups for my 10 oz of pasta.  I should have reduced the water further to 4 cups because I ultimately had to cook the pasta and sauce for longer at the back-end to evaporate additional water, leaving my pasta slightly overcooked.

Then toss with the breadcrumbs and serve.  Yum!