Italian Pasta with Sicilian Cauliflower | Pasta con i Broccoli Arriminati
This is the great vegetable pasta of Palermo, and almost everything about its name is misleading to anyone reading it in English. There is no broccoli in it. There is a cauliflower, cooked until it gives up entirely, stirred into anchovy, onion, saffron, raisins and pine nuts until the vegetable stops being a vegetable and becomes a sauce.
The flavour is the surprising part. Sweet raisins and saffron sit against salty anchovy and the faint bitterness of the cauliflower, and instead of cheese the dish is finished with muddica atturrata, coarse breadcrumbs toasted in olive oil until they crack between the teeth. That combination is not an eccentricity. It is the clearest surviving trace of Arab Sicily in a bowl of pasta.
What makes or breaks it is the stirring, which is what the word arriminati refers to, and the decision to cook the pasta in the cauliflower water rather than fresh water. Both are explained below.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 20 minutes. Cook: 40 minutes. Total: about 1 hour. Difficulty: easy to medium. Course: primo piatto. Region: Palermo and western Sicily.
The Story
The first thing to clear up is the name, because it confuses everyone outside Sicily. In Sicilian, and in the everyday Italian spoken on the island, a cauliflower is called a broccolo. What the rest of Italy calls broccoli, the sprouting green kind, the Sicilians call sparaceddi. So broccoli arriminati means cauliflower, and a recipe that looks like it should be green is in fact built on a white or pale green head bought at the Ballaro or the Capo market in Palermo.
The second word is the technique. Arriminari is the Sicilian verb for stirring something round and round, working it over and over in the pan, and arriminati is what has been done to the cauliflower by the time it reaches the pasta. It is not a synonym for mixing. It describes a sustained crushing and turning that breaks the florets down against the side of the pan until the mixture goes from pieces of vegetable in oil to a single soft mass.
The flavour comes from further back. Sicily was under Arab rule from the ninth to the eleventh century, and the kitchen of the west still carries that inheritance more plainly than any other in Italy: saffron, raisins, pine nuts, and sweet set against salt in a savoury dish. Anchovy and cheese do not go together in the Palermo tradition, so this pasta takes none, and the richness Parmigiano would provide comes instead from muddica atturrata, toasted breadcrumbs long known as the cheese of the poor. It is a winter dish, when a head of cauliflower and a handful of stale bread fed a family.
Ingredients
For the pasta
Bucatini, 14 oz (400 g)
Water for boiling, 5 quarts (4.7 liters)
Coarse sea salt for the water, 1 1/2 tbsp (27 g)
For the cauliflower
Cauliflower, white or Sicilian green, 1 large head, about 2 lb (900 g) untrimmed
Yellow onion, thinly sliced, 1 large, 7 oz (200 g)
Anchovy fillets packed in oil, 5
Golden raisins, 1/4 cup (40 g)
Pine nuts, 1/4 cup (35 g)
Saffron threads, 1 generous pinch, about 0.3 g
Extra virgin olive oil, 5 tbsp (75 ml)
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the muddica atturrata
Coarse dry breadcrumbs from stale country bread, 1 1/4 cups (100 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch
For finishing
Reserved cauliflower cooking water, about 1 cup (240 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Boil the cauliflower and keep every drop of the water
Trim the head, discard the toughest part of the core and break the rest into small florets, keeping the tender inner leaves. Bring 3 quarts of water to the boil, salt it lightly, and cook the florets for 10 to 12 minutes until a knife goes through with no resistance at all. This is the one vegetable you are not trying to keep al dente. Lift the florets out with a spider and keep the water in the pot, because you will cook the pasta in it.
Plump the raisins and bloom the saffron
Put the raisins in a small bowl with warm water for 10 minutes, then drain and squeeze them gently. Crush the saffron threads between your fingers into a second bowl and add 3 tablespoons of the hot cauliflower water. Leave it to steep. Saffron gives up colour and aroma to warm liquid over several minutes, and thrown dry into a hot pan it scorches, which is why it is added late.
Toast the pine nuts and make the muddica atturrata
Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, shaking constantly, until pale gold, then tip them out at once. In the same pan warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil, add the breadcrumbs and a pinch of salt, and stir over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes until deep gold, dry and loose rather than clumped. Tip them onto a plate to cool, because left in the hot pan they turn bitter.
Melt the anchovies into the onion
Heat the remaining 5 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide pan over medium low heat, add the sliced onion and cook gently for 10 minutes until completely soft and sweet but still pale. Add the anchovy fillets and press them against the base of the pan with a wooden spoon. Within a minute they dissolve into the oil, leaving no pieces and no fishy smell. This is the salt base of the dish, so add no more salt until the end.
Arriminare the cauliflower
Add the boiled florets to the pan with the drained raisins and the toasted pine nuts. Now begin the stirring the dish is named for: turn and crush the cauliflower against the side of the pan with the back of a wooden spoon, over and over, for 8 to 10 minutes on medium low heat, adding a ladle of the cauliflower water whenever the pan looks dry. It should go from florets in oil to a rough golden cream with a little texture left.
Add the saffron and finish the base
Pour in the steeped saffron and its liquid and keep stirring for 2 minutes so the colour runs through evenly. Grind in black pepper and taste. It should be savoury from the anchovy, sweet at the edges from the raisins and onion, and slightly bitter from the cauliflower. Adjust with fine salt only now, remembering the pasta water is salted too. Keep the base loose, because it thickens fast off the heat.
Cook the bucatini in the cauliflower water
Bring the reserved cauliflower water back to a rolling boil, top it up if needed and add the coarse salt. That water carries the flavour of the vegetable and is why this pasta tastes different from one merely dressed with the same sauce. Add the bucatini, stir for 30 seconds so the long tubes do not stick, and cook 2 minutes less than the box time. Before draining, take out about 1 cup of the water.
Toss the pasta into the base and serve at once
Drain the bucatini and tip it into the cauliflower pan with half a cup of the cooking water. Toss over medium heat for 2 minutes, adding more water a splash at a time, until the sauce clings to the strands and no loose liquid sits in the pan. Off the heat, add the last tablespoon of olive oil and toss again. Stir a small handful of muddica through and keep the rest for the table.
Plating
Serve in warm bowls rather than flat plates, because bucatini in a loose sauce slides. Use tongs and lift each portion high so the strands fall into a coil rather than a flat pile, then spoon over any sauce left in the pan.
The muddica goes on at the table, generously, at the last possible second. Toasted breadcrumbs lose their crack within a minute of meeting a wet sauce, so a bowl passed around beats anything scattered in the kitchen. No cheese: the anchovy already does that job. A final grind of black pepper is the only other thing this plate wants.
Professional Technique
Arriminare is mechanical breakdown, and understanding that changes how you do it. Cauliflower is held together by pectin in its cell walls, and long boiling softens that pectin until physical pressure separates the cells cleanly. Crushing it in the pan afterwards, gradually and with liquid, produces a rough emulsion of vegetable pulp and olive oil that behaves like a sauce. A processor gives you a smooth puree instead, with none of the small fibrous fragments that make the dish interesting.
Melting the anchovy is the second technique and the one most cooks half do. Fillets cured in salt and packed in oil break down at low heat into free glutamates and fat soluble aromatics that spread through the pan and stop tasting like fish. The conditions matter: low heat, enough oil, and a spoon pressing them against the metal. In a hot dry pan they seize and stay identifiably anchovy, which is why the onion goes in first.
The third is cooking the pasta in the cauliflower water, standard in Palermo and rare elsewhere. The water has taken on sulphur compounds and sugars from the florets, so the bucatini absorbs a faint cauliflower flavour from the inside while the sauce works on the outside. The starch it releases already carries the flavour of the dish, so the final emulsion tastes of one thing rather than two.
Texture and Moisture Control
This sauce has no cream, no butter and no cheese, so the only thing holding it together is vegetable pulp, olive oil and pasta starch. That makes it fragile in one way: it tightens quickly as it cools, and a base that looked right can set into a paste by the time the pasta is drained. Keep it looser than you want it and keep hot cooking water within reach.
The cauliflower must be genuinely overcooked by normal standards. Florets that still hold their shape will not crush, and you end up tossing pasta with lumps of vegetable instead of a sauce. Test one against the side of the pot with a spoon before you lift them out. It should give way without pressure.
The breadcrumbs are the opposite problem. Muddica atturrata is toasted until dry and separate, not damp and golden, and it stays crisp only while it stays dry. Toast it first, cool it on a plate, and never stir it all through the pan, where it turns to porridge within a minute.
Professional Mise en Place
Everything except the pasta can be done in advance, and in a Palermo kitchen the base sits ready from mid morning.
Equipment and tools
Wide pan, 12 inches (30 cm), for the base and the final toss
Large pot for boiling the cauliflower and then the pasta
Spider or slotted spoon for lifting the florets out of their water
Wooden spoon with a flat edge, which crushes better than a rounded one
Small dry pan for the pine nuts and breadcrumbs, and two small bowls
Prepared ahead
Cauliflower boiled and drained, with its water saved, up to 1 day ahead
Muddica atturrata toasted and cooled, up to 3 days ahead in a sealed jar
Pine nuts toasted and raisins plumped and drained, on the day
Onion sliced and anchovies drained, on the day
Full cauliflower base through the saffron, up to 2 days ahead, refrigerated
Service setup
Base warm in the pan, loosened with cauliflower water if it has set
Cauliflower water back at a rolling boil and salted for the pasta
Cup of cooking water drawn off before the pasta is drained
Muddica in a bowl at the table, not in the pan
Bowls warming, pepper mill and finishing oil beside the stove
Chef Tips
Buy anchovies packed in olive oil from a jar rather than a flat tin, and taste one before you use five. Quality varies enormously and a harsh, over salted fillet carries straight through a dish with nothing else to hide behind.
If you can find the pale green Sicilian cauliflower, use it. It is sweeter and less sulphurous than the white kind and breaks down into a better coloured sauce. A white head works well, but boil it a minute longer.
Make the muddica from real stale bread, not from a packet. Grate a two day old country loaf, crust included, into coarse uneven crumbs. Fine commercial crumbs pack together and go sandy in the pan.
Bucatini is traditional here and worth the trouble, because the hollow centre fills with sauce. If the long strands defeat you, use mezzi ziti spezzati. Do not use a thin cut like spaghettini, which the heavy sauce simply weighs down.
Common Mistakes
Undercooking the cauliflower. Florets kept al dente never crush, and the dish stays pasta with boiled vegetable in it. Cook them until a knife meets no resistance, which will feel wrong and is not.
Throwing away the cauliflower water. That water is both the cooking liquid for the pasta and the liquid for loosening the sauce. Down the sink goes the one thing that makes this taste of Palermo.
Adding the saffron dry to a hot pan. Saffron needs warm liquid and several minutes to release colour and aroma. Sprinkled into hot oil it scorches, giving an acrid note and almost no colour. Steep it in the hot cooking water instead.
Browning the anchovies. In a hot dry pan they seize and stay recognisably fishy. They should melt into soft, oily onion over low heat until they disappear completely, leaving savour rather than anchovy.
Finishing with cheese. Palermo pairs anchovy with breadcrumbs, never with Parmigiano or Pecorino. Cheese here covers the saffron and fights the raisins, and the muddica does the job better.
Stirring all the breadcrumbs into the pan. They absorb sauce and go soft in under a minute. Toss a small handful through for body and serve the rest at the table so each bowl gets its crunch at the last second.
Wine Pairing
Grillo Sicilia DOC: The obvious Sicilian white and the most reliable answer to a plate with this much going on. Dry, full bodied for a white and grown around Trapani and Marsala, it has ripe citrus and a saline finish that meets the anchovy directly rather than covering it. There is enough weight for the olive oil and the breadcrumbs without the wine turning heavy.
Etna Bianco DOC: Carricante grown on volcanic soil on the eastern slopes, and a sharper, more linear wine than Grillo. Its high acidity and stony bite cut the richness of the crushed cauliflower, while a faint smoky note sits beside the saffron. This is the bottle for anyone who finds the raisins too sweet.
Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG: The only DOCG in Sicily and the red that works best here. The blend of Nero d Avola and Frappato gives a dry, light bodied wine with red cherry fruit, soft tannin and real perfume, and served cool at 57°F (14°C) it handles the sweet and salty tension without flattening it. Frappato keeps it light enough for a vegetable pasta.
Faro DOC: A rare dry red from the hills above Messina, made mainly from Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio. Pale, high in acidity and gently tannic, with red berry fruit and a herbal, almost bitter edge that echoes the cauliflower. Worth the search if you like a red that behaves like a white at the table.
Etna Rosso DOC: Nerello Mascalese from the volcano, dry and firm, with sour cherry fruit, fine tannin and a mineral spine. It has the acidity a saffron and anchovy sauce needs and enough structure for the toasted breadcrumbs. Serve it at 60°F (16°C) and choose a young unoaked bottling, since oak buries the saffron.
Storage & Reheating
The cauliflower base is the part worth storing. It keeps in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and freezes for up to 2 months, and its flavour improves after a day as the anchovy and saffron settle in. Muddica atturrata keeps for 3 days in a sealed jar at room temperature and should never go in the refrigerator, where it takes up moisture and goes soft.
Dressed pasta keeps for 2 days refrigerated and is best reheated in a wide pan over medium heat with 3 or 4 tablespoons of water, kept moving until the sauce loosens and coats again. Do not use a microwave, which dries the bucatini and leaves the sauce grainy. Add fresh muddica after reheating, never before.
Do not freeze the finished pasta. Bucatini takes on water while freezing and thawing and comes back swollen, and a sauce held together only by vegetable pulp and starch separates on reheating. Freeze the base alone in single portions instead.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 portions:
Calories: 690 kcal
Total Fat: 29 g
Saturated Fat: 4 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 24 g
Cholesterol: 5 mg
Sodium: 780 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 92 g
Fiber: 8 g
Total Sugars: 13 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 19 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, potassium, manganese, magnesium, iron
These figures are estimates. Most of the salt in the boiling water is discarded, and the real sodium depends on the anchovies and on how much muddica goes on at the table.
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