Warm Broccoli with Colatura, the Recipe to Learn First

Colatura di alici is the amber liquid drained from anchovies that have spent months layered with salt in small wooden barrels in Cetara, a fishing town on the Amalfi coast. It is a seasoning, poured by the spoonful or the drop over food that is already cooked. The Campania regional agriculture office describes it as the traditional condiment in Cetara "for the spaghetti of the vigils, as well as for bruschetta, the broccoli of Christmas and other vegetables." The spaghetti has its own recipe, Spaghetti with Colatura. The broccoli comes first, because steamed broccoli dressed warm with colatura, lemon and olive oil is the plainest way to taste what the bottle does. It takes six ingredients and seventeen minutes, and no salt from the box.

Colatura does two jobs at once. It brings the savor of cured anchovy, and it salts the dish. The producers' specification for the protected name sets a floor of 20 g of salt in every 100 g, so the dressing below uses the colatura as its only salt. Once you know how much a teaspoon carries, you can put the bottle on pasta, eggs, bread or any green vegetable and get the seasoning right the first time.

What is in the bottle

Colatura di Alici di Cetara has been a protected designation of origin in the EU since 2020, under Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1529. The production specification says the anchovies are fished within 12 miles of the coast of the province of Salerno between the end of March and the middle of July, then cured with salt in terzigni and wooden casks. The Campania region describes the liquid that seeps from the fish being filtered through linen cloths called cappucci. The same office calls colatura the heir of garum, the Roman fish sauce described by Pliny and Horace.

The specification describes finished colatura as amber tending to brown mahogany, with a persistent, intense aroma "that recalls the scent of anchovies under salt," and a flavor that is "umami, strong and with high sapidity." That high sapidity is the salt floor at work, and it is why this recipe treats the bottle as its salt cellar. How to Buy Colatura covers what the label can tell you. For the fish itself, see the anchovy guide. For a plant-based relative made on the same principle, see the mushroom garum guide.

Ingredients, for four

• 700 g (about 1 1/2 lb) broccoli, one large head or two small; broccolini or broccoli rabe also work
• 4 teaspoons (20 ml) colatura di alici, such as IASA colatura (shop IASA colatura)
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) fresh lemon juice, plus the finely grated zest of half the lemon
• 6 tablespoons (90 ml) extra virgin olive oil, a fruity one such as the Capezzana (shop Capezzana)
• 1 small garlic clove, peeled and lightly crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon chile flakes, such as Burlap & Barrel Silk Chili (shop Burlap & Barrel Silk Chili) (optional)

There is no salt on the list. Measured by volume, the dressing is one part colatura, one and a half parts lemon juice and four and a half parts oil. The oil and lemon sit at the classic three-to-one vinaigrette ratio, with the colatura added on top as the salt.

Method

1. Steep the garlic. Put the crushed clove in a small bowl with the colatura and lemon juice. It sits there while the broccoli cooks and gives the dressing a faint garlic note without any raw bite.
2. Cut the broccoli. Cut the head into florets, each with a little stem attached. Peel the thick central stem, then halve it lengthwise and slice it about 1 cm thick.
3. Steam in two stages. Bring 3 cm of water to a boil in a wide pot with a steamer basket. Add the stem pieces, cover and steam for 1 minute. Add the florets, cover again and steam 4 to 6 minutes more. The broccoli is ready when a knife slides into a stem slice with slight resistance and the green is still vivid.
4. Let it steam dry. Lift out the basket and tip the broccoli onto a clean towel, or back into the empty pot off the heat, for one minute. Dressing slides off wet vegetables and pools on the platter. It clings to dry ones.
5. Finish the dressing. Fish out the garlic. Whisk in the olive oil and chile flakes until the dressing turns cloudy. It will separate as it stands, which does no harm. Whisk it again just before pouring.
6. Dress it warm. Put the broccoli on a platter, pour the dressing over, scatter the zest and turn everything gently with two spoons. Taste a floret. If it wants more depth, add a few drops of colatura. If it tastes heavy, add a squeeze of lemon. Do not reach for the salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. It holds well for an hour on the table.

The dosing card

The specification's minimum of 20 g of salt per 100 g makes the salt in each pour easy to count. The table treats a milliliter as a gram, so its figures are minimums. A liquid that is a fifth salt weighs a little more than water, so the true amounts run slightly higher.

Four grams of salt over 700 g of vegetables comes to a little under 0.6 percent by weight before the lemon and oil are counted. That seasons the broccoli fully and reads as savory, never briny. It also explains why the steaming water gets no salt. Steam barely seasons anything, and the colatura already carries the salt the plate needs. The same arithmetic applies anywhere the bottle goes. Work out what the colatura brings before adding salt from the box, as in the guide to salting.

Why it went wrong

Notes and variations

Other vegetables. The dressing works on cooked vegetables that can hold a little salt and acid. Try broccoli rabe, cauliflower, green beans, or chard stems cut into batons. Warm boiled potatoes, halved and dressed while hot, take it well too. Raw bitter chicories work as a salad, though raw leaves need a lighter hand, about three teaspoons of colatura for the full amount of dressing. Bruschetta. The Campania region lists bruschetta among colatura's traditional uses. Grill or toast thick slices of country bread, rub them lightly with a cut garlic clove, drizzle with oil and finish each slice with a few drops of colatura. Pile the dressed broccoli on top and it becomes supper. An egg. A soft-boiled or fried egg on the broccoli with a few extra drops of colatura on the yolk makes a meal for two. Pasta. When the broccoli is second nature, move on to Spaghetti with Colatura, the Christmas-season dish of Cetara. It uses the same idea, colatura added at the end off the heat, and the dosing card above applies to it.

In Denver. Water boils at about 202°F at 5,000 feet, and the New Mexico State University Extension guide to high-altitude cooking notes that foods cooked with moisture at or above that elevation need extra time. Steam is no hotter than the water that makes it, so steaming at Denver's altitude runs slower too. Expect the broccoli to need a minute or two more than the sea-level time and judge it with a knife rather than the clock. The same guide notes that boiling concentrates liquid through evaporation, and the effect comes on faster at altitude. Check the pot at the halfway mark and top it up with boiling water if it is running low. The dressing is untouched by altitude. The Pantry Dispatch's altitude guide covers the rest of the Denver kitchen.

Keeping the bottle. At 20 ml a batch, a 100 ml bottle makes this recipe five times, or dresses about 80 slices of bruschetta at a quarter teaspoon each. Storage and shelf life are covered in Colatura di Alici, Answered.

The colatura, the olive oil and the chile flakes are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.

Sources & Further Reading

• Colatura di Alici di Cetara: the PDO production specification
• Regione Campania, Assessorato all'Agricoltura: Colatura di Alici di Cetara DOP
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1529, registering Colatura di Alici di Cetara as a PDO
• New Mexico State University Extension: High-Altitude Cooking
• The Pantry Dispatch: Anchovies, The Complete Guide