How I cook: Cime di rapa | Turnip Tops | Recipe

Okay, this is a Cimi di Rapa, a wonderful little green that comes from Italy. I'm going to braise that down. This is how I serve Cimi di Rapa. It's an inspiring little green. Okay, here is my Cimi di Rapa. Beautiful thing. We're going to just take some of the leaves off. Pick those whole. It's a great green, really bitter, so it does need to be cooked a certain way. I like cooking chard like this, I like cooking Cimi di Rapa this way. You can use it as a nice garnish inside a pasta dish. It makes a lovely side, it makes a lovely braise to fold through some beans or lentils, that sort of thing. Really, really versatile. And a really cheap and easy green that they eat everywhere in Italy. And this is how I cook it. So very simply, I strip off all these leaves. I don't want that one. And what we'll end up with will be all these stems and the kind of flowering buds on the top. What we'll do, we'll just take those off. They can go in whole, almost looks like a sort of broccoli really. That can go in whole. And then these stems, what I'll do, I'll just slice these up really fine. So what you're trying to do really is make all of the different components of the plant at the same sort of cooking thickness, if you like. So it's going to have a bit of crunch from the stalk, a bit of softness from the leaf. And a different sort of texture altogether from that lovely flowering part as well. So leave that in there whole. We've served this upstairs at Trinity for years and years and years. And I never really liked it as a vegetable, but I had to learn to like it. And this is the way that I learned to like it. I don't even know if this is a particularly classical way to cook it, but it suits me down to the ground. Works in my palate, gets the greens in there. I do like some nice greens, especially as a side. We don't want to be too complicated with this. So basically just chop up all the stems like this. Nice big, flat, wide bottom pan. That's very important. As you'll see in a minute. Jarrod, could you just grab me a lid for this one here, please, mate. This will be on the menu at Rosina, probably though as a garnish. I don't think it will be on the menu as just a side dish. I think it will be as a garnish to, let's say, a lovely piece of pork or a piece of lamb or a piece of monkfish or whatever it'll be. So what we'll do, we'll keep going. I'll stop there. That's getting really bitter and needs a lot of cooking. So I'm going to stop there. I won't use that. And I'm basically going to keep going, plough my way through all of this wonderful greenery. And I'll show you what goes in there next. OK, so there we go. There's that chimichurri all prepped. It's actually washed beforehand but into a nice big, flat pan like that. We've got the big pieces, the leaves and the stems in there as well. All we're going to do now is add some lovely, good stuff to really empower that. I remember eating this in Rome, actually. We had it in a restaurant in Rome on that wonderful road trip. But it was super bitter. Probably just fried, bit of garlic, bit of olive oil and salt, very simply cooked. And you really felt the bitterness. This, for me, suits a more angler-sized palate, if you like. So it's a bit softer and a bit sweeter. Plenty of anchovies. These are not expensive anchovies. They're just the cheap ones. But they go in all over the pan like that. And they're just adding that sort of saltiness. So when you add these anchovies in, you've got to be a little bit cautious about how much salt you add. Then we're going to add a whole chilli. Or garnish for a nice piece of rustic fish. Bit of turbot, maybe. Big piece of turbot. Not very rustic, but a piece of turbot. We're going to add some heat in there as well now. So we'll just go like that. Bit of roughly chopped chilli in there as well. This is a simple side. Could use chilli flakes if you wanted. Pepper and Gino. No problem. Into that we're going to add some Maldon sea salt. Again, careful because of the anchovies. A little bit of Maldon sea salt. Going to add some black pepper. I think that's already starting to get a bit of... OK, this is interesting. Some really nice olive oil in there as well. Good quality olive oil. Pop the heat on really high. A little bit of garlic in there as well. A little bit of nicely chopped garlic. And the last ingredient is white wine. So this is a little bit of just lovely, simple white wine. Nice Chardonnay. In it goes. A little bit of liquid in there. Not too much. That's all in there. We're going to add some of that. The old double lid. So that comes to the cartouche, into the mix. Just pop a little cartouche on top. Again, we're just trying to keep that moisture there for a minute. Let it all bleed out really quickly, high heat. And once it's all bled out, we can lift off the lid and then dry it out. That's what we're looking for. This will take about 30-35 minutes to cook. Pop the cartouche on top. Pop the lid on top of that. Come back in 30 minutes. It's nice high heat. Come back in about 30 minutes. There's that delicious chimichurri. Super bitter green. Super good for you. A drizzle of olive oil. Nice grate of Reggiano Parmigiano. On there as well. That's it. Beautiful little side dish. Should be tucking into this. I think it's delicious. It's bitter, but I think it's in a really pleasant way. Try that. It's so different to what we had in Rome. The storks are more bitter. I think it's utterly delicious. Yeah, it's good, eh? You sort of want it to fold over itself like that. See that, where the emulsion's happening. I'm happy with that, Sam. It's really nice. Look at that. Shall we try? So this is pasta with chimichurri, parmesan and olive oil. I mean, that's it. One more. Hotter than the sun. It's really nice, Sam. And the salt is good. I wonder if the targa's nice on that.