The main course in tonight’s dinner is actually pork shoulder (yes, another bag of the same pork shoulder that I made and froze about a month ago).  Once again, I’m serving the braising liquid over Fettucine, but this time, I’m brightening it with some parsley and peas for added greenness.

Then I’m serving the meat as our main course (I’m sure you’ve seen enough photos of my braised pork, so I’ll spare you the photo!) 

The feature of tonight’s post, however, is the side dish–broccoli di rapa with chorizo, a spanish sausage made with pork, garlic and paprika.  Chorizo can be found fresh at certain butchers, but more often, it is found cured in vaccuum pack.  D’Artagnan makes a very good Chorizo which I buy in my regular supermarket (Waldbaum’s).

This dish is reminiscent of my mother’s broccoli di rapa, in that she always sauteed the greens raw with lots of garlic and some cured sausage–more commonly known in this country as pepperoni.  (In Italy, pepperoni are “large peppers” and “pepperoni sausage” is unknown).  I love pepperoni, but I love chorizo even more!

Tonight, I’m not sauteing the greens raw, but rather blanching them briefly (only a couple of minutes) in boiling salted water, then draining.  This can be done a couple of hours ahead.

After they’re drained, I saute some sliced chorizo in olive oil–the chorizo makes the oil red from all of the paprika in it.  It also imparts that wonderful smokey aroma into the oil and the greens.  Not in the mood for additional garlic tonight–there’s enough in the chorizo

The greens are then added to the sizzling sausage and sauteed on high heat for about 5 minutes. 

This is not only a great side dish, but a wonderful appetizer with fresh bread and raw olive oil.  It is also wonderful at room temperature the next day.