Video: Roasted Broccoli Rabe - NYTimes.com Melissa Clark is the author of the column "A Good Appetite" and a number of cookbooks, including the recent "Cook This Now." She offers more recipes on her blog. A recent addition to my roasted vegetable repertory is broccoli rabe. Like regular broccoli, its tamer sister, roasting renders it softer, sweeter and crisp around the edges. And if you happen to have the oven on anyway (say, for making splayed roast chicken), it's also extremely convenient. Simply rinse and trim the rabe, saving all the nice green leaves. Give everything a shake, but leave some water still clinging. Toss with good olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, lay the greens out in one layer on a rimmed baking sheet, and roast at 500 degrees for 5 to 7 minutes, until the rabe is soft and the leaves are lightly singed. I've eaten this warm as a side dish, cold as a salad, on crostini topped with ricotta (homemade if you're into it), and chopped up into a chick pea salad. It's probably good in lots of other places, too, but I haven't gotten there yet. I'm sure in time I will. It's a delightful alternative to the usual sautéing-with-garlic-and-chile rut that I usually fall back on when I see a bunch of rabe. Not that I'll ever give that dish up, but it's nice to have options.