Orecchiette with broccoli and sausage

Our cousin from Bari has exactly one culinary opinion, which is that pasta with broccoli is superior to every other pasta on earth. The classic Apulian version uses cime di rapa, a bitter green that mysteriously disappears the moment you cross the regional border. Broccoli steps in, keeps its mouth shut, and delivers.

We were introduced to this dish the summer our cousin's wedding took place in a tiny village outside Polignano a Mare. We arrived a day early, walked into her mother's kitchen looking for water, and found a scene of industrial chaos: three women making orecchiette by hand at a long marble table, pressing the dough with their thumbs into little ear-shaped discs while talking about the priest. Our cousin's mother handed us a plate of the previous night's leftovers, apologizing that it was nothing, sì sì solo orecchiette avanzate. The leftovers were this dish, served at room temperature from a terracotta bowl. We ate it standing up in the middle of the marble-table assembly line and didn't move until the plate was empty. Our cousin's mother nodded approvingly and said bene, almeno non siete schizzinosi, at least you're not fussy.

What follows is our home version, adapted for the rest of Europe where you can't get cime di rapa but can always get a head of broccoli. Same pot for the broccoli and the pasta, same pan for the sausage and the cooked broccoli at the end, dinner in twenty-five minutes. Our cousin would approve, quietly, in dialect. The trick is to cook the broccoli in the pasta water first, lift it out with a slotted spoon, and then cook the pasta in the same water. The broccoli teaches the water, the water teaches the pasta, and the Apulian logic holds.