Friarielli alla Napoletana

Friarielli are not broccoli rabe, though Americans use the terms interchangeably. True friarielli are a variety specific to Campania, harvested before the florets fully form, with a bitterness that is somehow sweeter, more vegetal than their American cousins. If you cannot find authentic friarielli, broccoli rabe will do. But you should know the difference exists.

This is contorno in its purest form: a vegetable cooked simply to accompany something else. In Naples, that something else is almost always sausage. The combination of fatty, fennel-scented pork and bitter, garlicky greens is one of those marriages that seems inevitable once you have tasted it. Each component makes the other better.

The technique requires attention but not skill. You must watch the garlic. You must let the greens char without stirring them into submission. What you keep out matters: no onion, no tomato, no cheese. The Neapolitans understood that these greens need nothing but heat and fat and a whisper of fire.