IN THE KITCHEN : Bowl of Confusion

When it comes right down to it, there are no simple dishes. Even pasta and broccoli, which everyone agrees is one of the standard preparations in southern Italian cooking, can be downright complicated.

It’s not the recipes themselves that give pause; most ask for ordinary ingredients and rudimentary cooking skills and take no more than 15 minutes. The problem is that nobody agrees on how to fix this simple dish. (Why am I surprised? This is Italian cooking, after all.)

What’s more, though there are rough similarities among many of the recipes given in several Italian cookbooks, the differences are often not matters of degree but fairly substantial.

Per esempio :

* In Viana LaPlace’s “Verdura,” broccoli and lots of garlic are cooked into a thick mush. No anchovies, no pine nuts.

* In Mary Taylor Simeti’s “Pomp and Sustenance,” broccoli is cooked to a mush with anchovies, pine nuts and currants--but no garlic.

* In Marcella Hazan’s “The Classic Italian Cookbook,” the broccoli is cooked with anchovies and, again, no garlic. But this time the broccoli is cooked briefly, remaining fairly crisp.

* In Giuliano Bugialli’s “Bugialli on Pasta,” the broccoli also remains crisp, but it is cooked with a pungent sauce of garlic, hot peppers and capers--but no anchovies.

* So I went right to the source: Ada Boni’s “Piccolo Talismano della Felicita,” roughly comparable to our “Joy of Cooking.” Hmmm. Boni calls for boiling the broccoli, then frying it and then baking it together with macaroni and some grated pecorino Romano cheese. Never mind.

What’s interesting is the aesthetic difference between the long-cooked and briefly cooked foods. In the long-cooked dishes, the broccoli melts into a kind of rough puree--literally, a sauce. The flavor changes dramatically. We think of broccoli as being a fairly forceful vegetable, but by the time it has cooked long enough to turn into a sauce, most of that flavor has cooked away. This is even true in Simeti’s recipe, which initially sounds like a Sicilian brass band of a dish, anchovies and currants blaring. By the end of the cooking, everything has mellowed.

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Personally, I prefer the crisper school (though, following the cooking times, the broccoli in even the briefly cooked Italian recipes is nowhere near as crisp as it is usually served in this country). The flavors are more emphatic, but they also keep more to themselves. Rather than blending ingredients, you’re balancing them--the broccoli against the garlic, the pepper against the anchovies. Here, the sauce is really the olive oil and garlic, anchovies, etc., and it serves to flavor both the broccoli and the pasta.

There are other differences in the recipes, from neat little tricks--Bugialli adds pasta, stems and florets to the pot in stages and cooks them together--to neat big tricks--Simeti melts the anchovies with a little olive oil in a bowl over the boiling pasta water; the result is a much sweeter, rounder flavor than when they are cooked over higher heat.

But again, why am I surprised? In southern Italy, which pasta and broccoli calls home, broccoli isn’t even called broccoli. Instead, broccoli is what you call cauliflower, or maybe what we call “brocco-flower” (in the rest of Italy, of course, cauliflower is called cavolfiore ). What we call broccoli is called sparacelli . I say, let’s call the whole thing off.

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This is Bugialli’s version of the dish, which I liked the best of the half-dozen I tried. The combination of broccoli, pepper, garlic and capers sets off fireworks, which are more than welcome on a winter night after a long day’s work. It’s so flavorful, I don’t really miss the anchovies. And it’s easy to make. The pasta is put to cook with the broccoli stems; after a couple of minutes the broccoli florets are added. All three--pasta, stems and florets--should emerge properly cooked at the end of the pasta cooking time. PASTA AND BROCCOLI

(Pasta e Broccoli)

1 large bunch broccoli, with at least 4 stems

Coarse-grained salt

1 pound cavatappi or fusilli

2 large cloves garlic

3/4 cup olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes

4 heaping tablespoons capers packed in wine vinegar, drained

20 large sprigs Italian parsley, leaves only, coarsely chopped

Clean broccoli, discarding tough bottom stems, and separate stems from florets. Place in 2 bowls of cold water 30 minutes.

Bring large pot of cold water to boil. Add coarse salt to taste, then add pasta and immediately afterward, broccoli stems. Pasta should be cooked al dente, 9 to 12 minutes. About 2 minutes after adding stems, add florets.

Meanwhile, mince garlic. Place oil in small saucepan over medium heat. When oil is warm, add garlic and saute until lightly golden, about 1 minute. Season to taste with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Add capers and saute 2 more minutes. By that time, pasta and broccoli should be cooked.

Drain contents of stockpot. Transfer to large warmed serving dish. Pour sauce over and mix well. Sprinkle parsley over and serve immediately. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Each of 4 servings contains about:

825 calories; 374 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 43 grams fat; 95 grams carbohydrates; 19 grams protein; 2.1 grams fiber.