PASTA ALLA NORMA FOR YOU AND YOUR LOVER
Another week, another recipe — this one straight from our chef’s dreamy Italian island escape. It’s the kind of vacation pasta that tastes like sunshine, Aperol, and doing absolutely nothing productive for hours. Roasty, jammy tomatoes. Olive oil-soaked eggplant. Spicy, garlicky sauce. Rigatoni, obviously. It’s unfussy, unapologetically oily, and exactly what you should make when your fridge is empty but your soul craves Italy.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut eggplant (depending on the size, about two) into thick half moons, rub with a bit of salt to sweat them, and set aside on a sheet pan for the time being.
Get your sauce going. Rinse a half sheet’s worth - approximately 3 pints, I’d say — of small tomatoes — can be any variety, just not big boys — and lay them out on the half sheet. Toss with abundant salt, olive oil, and black pepper. If your oven’s preheated, pop em in on the top rack, closest to the heat source.
Return to your eggplant. They will have released some water, so gently dab them with a paper towel. Toss them in what seems a disturbing amount of olive oil — they really soak it up, so pour upon one side, then flip and do the other. There should also be a visible sheen of olive oil on the pan; it will help with both browning and non-sticking. Season the eggplant with a touch more salt and a grind of black pepper, and stick them in the oven.
Now that the eggplants and tomatoes are going, get the salted water for pasta (RIGATONI) going, just cause.
Do the rest of your sauce mise: mince six cloves of garlic and two or three chili peppers, depending on your preferred spice level — ideally Calabrian (you can find jarred in most grocery stories) but red Fresnos would do as well. If using Fresnos, one to two is enough.
Put about three tbsp of olive oil in a sauce pot and turn on medium heat. While oil is still cold, drop in your garlic and peppers. They should soon start to gently sizzle. While they get going, check out the tomatoes: in a perfect world they will have released a lot of juice and will be gently browning on top, but even if they’re not quite brown yet, take them out now. Pour the delicious tomatoes and their juices, scraping the pan for any caramelized bits, into the pot with the sizzling garlic and pepper. Give a stir and turn down to a gentle simmer, tasting periodically for salt and development.
Take out the eggplant and quickly flip from one side to the other — the side that was on the pan should be nice and brown. If needed, add another glug of olive oil.
While sauce develops and eggplant finishes, do your other prep: pick and tear your basil, grate your ricotta salata into delicate sheets, etc. Once those are done, and when the eggplant looks like it needs about 5-10 more minutes, put your pasta in.
Once the eggplant is beautifully browned on all sides and tender, remove from the oven. Whether or not you dump it in the sauce is up to you: some people prefer an amalgamation, others prefer to toss the pasta in the sauce but just arrange the eggplant on top. It WILL break down in the pasta sauce, but that can be yummy.
To serve, toss the pasta in the sauce with a touch of pasta water, butter, and a grate of parm, if desired, for umami. Top with eggplant (if not in sauce), basil, and ricotta salata, and serve.
