Loading ...Mediterranean Cooking from the Garden with Linda Dalal Sawaya: Arugula and Rapini spring greens make fabulous, nutritious side dishes
rapini © linda dalal sawaya 2015
ARUGULA AND RAPINI: using Italian spring greens to create fabulous side dishes
A recent visitor to my garden was a commercial small organic farmer supplying local restaurants with seasonal produce. She noticed a lot of what she called rapini. I had met her and her husband at a Slow Food Portland event last year and it was a pleasure to have her in my garden. Their farm supplies these shoots to many of Portland’s upscale restaurants. I have been braising the shoots with garlic and red chili pepper flakes in olive oil and serving as a side dish. Many varieties of brassicas, including kale and broccoli that are now flowering, can be called rapini.
One great thing about this super nutritious vegetable is that it is a “cut-and-come-again” type of plant. The brassicus plants want to produce flowers to make seeds for the future, so if you keep cutting these surprisingly sweet and tender stems with blossoms, the plant will continue to produce more. This along with arugula are excellent accompaniments to Mediterranean-inspired meals.
arugula in my garden © linda dalal sawaya 2015
Braising or sautéing rapini is quick and simple: just heat olive oil, add sliced garlic, and add washed and drained greens, sprinkle on a couple dashes of chili pepper flakes; stir a few times, cover to steam a bit, and voila: a gourmet side dish for your dining table. In Alice’s Kitchen, mother would drizzle our classic garlic, lemon, and olive oil dressing over it steamed or sautéed, which is excellent over spinach, asparagus, and any fresh vegetable—steamed or sautéed.
braising kale rapini © linda dalal sawaya 2015
kale rapini © linda dalal sawaya 2015
Arugula is fabulous solo or as an addition to any salad; with simple cheeses and sun dried tomatoes, and when added at the last minute to home made pizza. Just drizzle plain arugula with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil, top with a bit of lemon zest, and that’s all needed to make a simple quick salad and enhance arugula’s naturally spicy flavor. Add pine nuts, red onion, a bit of sumac, some cooked chick peas, and take it to another level. The secret for an excellent salad made with arugula and kale greens is to chiffonade the greens, especially the kale, which actually makes it sweet. A lemon juice dressing brings out more sweetness if you allow it to marinate a bit and has made kale one of my favorite greens famous for its health benefits.
sautéed kale with red onions © linda dalal sawaya 2015
Both arugula and rapini are Italian words that have come into our American culinary vocabulary without translation. In Arabic, arugula is called rocca as derived from the English word for it, rocket, which came from the French roquette, that came from the Latin eruca sativa, and the Italian rucola. It is also called jarjeer.
Middle Eastern recipes combine spicy arugula with onions, sumac, lemon, olive oil, and mushrooms or garbanzo beans in a salad called jarjeer; it is eaten as a side dish with our famous fava bean dish, ful mdammas, and also prepare it with roasted eggplant.
arugula and kale salad © linda dalal sawaya 2015
We in the U.S. are now fortunate with the resurgence of many abundant farmers’ markets to easily obtain these diverse seasonal organic produce choices that were unheard of not so many years ago in typical non-ethnic American kitchens or gardens simply elevating our home cooked meals to healthier and more exciting dimensions.
rucolino liqueur in the making with Everclear © linda dalal sawaya 2015
If you are truly adventurous, try your hand at making the southern Italian bitters/digestif, rucolino with your arugula! I started a batch using lemon zest and star anise; I will report on how it is once it is ready. Buon appetito and sahtine!!
—Linda Dalal Sawaya is a Portland artist, cook, Master Gardener, and author of Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking
Remember, as my mother Alice said, “If you make it with love, it will be delicious!”
all photos and story © linda dalal sawaya 2015