Rapini with toasted garlic, sesame, and lemon
This recipe is part of Ugly Vegetable Winter – weird winter vegetables that are delicious, locally grown, and often ignored. The recipe and technique can easily work with any cruciferous vegetable, so if all you have is kale or broccoli you can make this. If you want to try rapini, but can’t find it, ask your grocer to order it in.
Rapini is a leafy green vegetable that looks like slender stalks of broccoli – it’s sometimes called broccoli rabe – but it is not broccoli.
Rapini is a turnip. It’s quite bitter when raw, but if you cook it you’re rewarded with the most delicious, nutty vegetable with a beautiful texture. In this recipe, rapini’s nutty flavour is paired with crispy slivers of toasted garlic, toasted sesame seeds, and lemon for a bright pop of flavour.
This is a great vegetable side dish that comes together in 15 minutes.
Ingredients
1 bunch of rapini, around 450g
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 lemon, juice and zest
Ingredient notes:
If you can’t find rapini you can use turnip tops, radish tops, or beet tops for a similar taste and texture.
This recipe will work with most cruciferous vegetables, such as kale, radicchio, Brussels sprouts, or broccoli.
For larger, firmer vegetables you’ll want to cut them into smaller pieces and use the texture/colour instructions instead of the time in the recipe.
Method
Clean the rapini
Rapini has a lot of small crevices where dirt and bugs can collect. To wash it, fill a large bowl with cold water. Fully submerge the rapini, shake it around, then leave it for 30 seconds for the dirt to fall to the bottom of the bowl. Remove the rapini. Repeat with clean water if necessary, then dry on kitchen towels.
Cook
Pre-heat a12” pan on medium-high heat, then add the olive oil. Once the oil is shimmering, add in the rapini. It’ll look too large for your pan but it will shrink as it cooks. It might sputter if it’s still wet.
Add a pinch of salt and cover the pan with a lid until the rapini is wilted and soft, about 5 minutes.
Flip the rapini and cook on one side until brown/charred on one side, 5-7 minutes. You need this deep level of browning to help cook out the bitter flavour.
Add in the sliced garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring often, until golden, fragrant, and crispy (try not to burn it).
Add in the sesame seeds and cook for another 30 seconds, stirring often, until toasted and golden brown.
Remove from heat and add the lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss everything to combine.
Transfer to a serving dish and top with the lemon zest.
Recipe notes:
Soft leafy green vegetables like rapini shrink a lot when cooking, so it might look like too much for your pan, but they will wilt down into 1/4–1/3 the original size.
If after wilting your pan is too crowded, or you don’t have a large pan, you can do this in two batches. Keep half the batch warm by putting it on a plate covered with another plate or with foil.
To make the into a lunch, consider adding:
toasted walnuts and feta cheese
warm cannellini beans
a fried egg