Winter food: bitter greens and Oranges

I have fond associations with bitter greens and winter – kale, while I love it, is mostly just an ornery, tough alternative to lettuce in the summer but in the middle of winter it may be the only green vegetable around and the bitterness which may have been mildly interesting during the warmer months screams of vitamins which the body would really like, right now, thank you very much.  Most of the bitter greens we grow in the states (kale, collard greens) are tough and desiring of long cooking times to break down the toughness, sauces to mitigate the bitterness, or both.  Puntarelle is a bitter winter green that looks (and tastes) like a cross between a head of romaine lettuce and a bunch of dandelion greens.  It has somewhat more body than lettuce and is much more bitter, but not quite as bitter as dandelion greens.  Long cooking times would be a pretty effective way of turning it into a disagreeable pile of mush.

We had some small, sour blood oranges around, so I started with the idea of using them to balance the bitterness of the puntarelle.  Thinly sliced, with the peel left on, the acidity of the juice mitigates the bitterness of the puntarelle while the peels bitterness adds complexity and the sweet fruitiness of the juice works as a soft element to counteract the hard bitter and acidic flavors.  To get an unami base to the mixture I used anchovies, crushed and sautéed in olive oil, but not so many as to dominate the other flavors.  I also added a small bit of red wine vinegar to accentuate the acidity (and because the orange wasn’t as sour as I thought it was going to be).

3 Tbs. Olive oil

1 small yellow onion, quartered and sliced into moderately wide (1/4 in.) strips

3 anchovy filets

1 blood orange, halved and sliced thinly

1 head puntarelle, cut into ~2” pieces

1/2 tsp. Red wine vinegar

1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper (optional)

rotini or similar pasta

salt to taste

pasta water

Start the pasta water boiling.  When you have added the pasta, start sautéing the anchovies with 2 Tbs. olive oil on low heat and break them apart with the back of a wooden spoon.  If you are including the crushed red pepper add it now.  Turn the heat to high and add the onions, searing the edges brown, and then the thinly sliced orange.  When the orange has released its juice and is looking cooked (the pasta should be close to done at this point) turn down the heat and add the puntarelle and vinegar.  With the pasta not quite done yet, add a half a cup or so of pasta water to the sauce, then drain the pasta and mix it in with the sauce and the final Tbs of olive oil for the last minuet or two of cooking time to let the flavors integrate.  This step is especially important with pasta sauces like this, which don’t inherently cling to the noodles.