Broccoli rabe rarely makes it into the oven; most cooks sauté or braise it instead. But roasting brings out its sweetness even more. Michael Natkin uses the smart technique for a fast pasta with cavatelli, smoked paprika and the Tunisian chile paste harissa. Slideshow: Fast Pastas
This recipe used to be on herbivoracious, the recipe writer's original platform. It appears to have been taken down from that site, probably so as not to compete with this recipe.
Pity. The other one was much better.
Broccoli rabe is a fancier seeming ingredient than the original broccoli that simply does not work right in this pasta. There isn't a strong enough balancing heavy protein or a bright enough acid profile to properly balance the bitterness.
The original recipe was fundamentally the same but called for regular old broccoli. That might be too low brow for the food and wine crowd, but trust me: make this recipe with broccoli, stem and florets, trimmed and chopped. It'll be a better meal; truly sad the author took a good recipe off the internet to gussy it up like this.
