Penne Pasta with Cauliflower

This recipe should be popular in Palermo, in Sicily. I found it in an old cooking book I bought in a flea market and, out of curiousity, I tried to cook it. Well, the result was excellent despite I'm not that great cook!


Ingredients for approximately 4 persons: 1 medium sized cauliflower, 1,3 lbs. of penne pasta, 2 ozs. of pine nuts, 2 ozs. of dried raisins, 2 ozs. anchovies paste, 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, 1 sachet of saffron, breadcrumbs, olive oil, salt and pepper.


Preparation: boil the cauliflower let it "al dente", but keep the water where you boiled it. In the meanwhile put the dried raisins into some lukewarm water to make them softer. Fry lightly the onions and the garlic and when they'll become browned put into the pine nuts, the raisins, the anchovies paste, the saffron and the cauliflower and let cook until this one will melt in a sort of cream. Make boil then the past into some salted water to which you add some of the water used to boil the cauliflower. Strain the pasta when it'll be cooked well "al dente", put it into a baking tin, dress it with the cauliflower sauce and sprinke it with beadcrumbs, previously browned in some oil.
Put the tin into the oven until the pasta will be well cooked "au gratin".