Penne with Broccoli

In a large pot, heat the olive oil until it shimmers. Add the garlic, pine nuts, and red pepper flakes and stir to coat with the oil. Allow to simmer until the garlic smells really good and the pine nuts are starting to brown. Add some ‘salt.

When the pine nuts and garlic and red pepper flakes are all cooking happily together, add the broccoli to the pot (you may need to pour in a bit more oil). Stir vigorously to coat the florets with the oil and other ingredients.

Pour in the can of chicken broth, lower the heat, cover the pot, and let it simmer.

This is the hard part: you’ve always heard that you need to cook broccoli just a little, right? Leaving it crisp? Forget that. You are going to cook the broccoli in the chicken broth until it is soft and breaks apart. It takes about half an hour, depending on how much broccoli you used and how finely you cut it up.

While the broccoli is cooking, heat a pot of salted water to boiling and cook the pasta. You want it VERY al dente — still with almost a stiffness to it. It needs that body to stand up to the broccoli mixture. Drain the pasta and rinse it with cold water to stop the cooking.

When the broccoli is soft, taste it and adjust the seasonings. For some reason this dish requires more salting than you’d think necessary.

Dump in the pasta and stir vigorously to coat all of the pasta with the lovely broccoli and garlic and pine nut goodness. Then dump in a cup and a half of grated Romano cheese (more or less, I like lots of cheese) and stir it up again.

Ladle into bowls and serve. Garnish with more pine nuts if you like.

IMPORTANT: Parmesan cheese does not work in this dish. For some reason the tastes don’t meld nearly as well. It needs to be Romano, preferably fresh grated.

For vegetarians, the Swanson’s Vegetable broth works well in lieu of chicken broth. It doesn’t taste quite as good to me, though.