Pasta Sorta Norma

Adapted from Slightly Different on the Rachel Eats blog by Rachel Roddy

This recipe for pasta with eggplant, tomato, basil, and cheese is inspired by—but not exactly—Pasta alla Norma, a dish typical to Catania in Sicily. 

Serves 2 (with 8 ounces of pasta)

1 eggplant (I use 1 small Italian, not Japanese, eggplant weighing about 8 ounces)
Extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into thick slices
400g tinned plum tomatoes, put through a food mill
Salt
Fresh basil (If you don’t have fresh basil, just leave it out—don’t substitute dried)
Pecorino Romano, or Parmesan, or ricotta salata (I prefer the Pecorino Romano)
Short pasta – penne works well

Wash the eggplant but do not peel it.

How to cut the eggplant into 1/4-inch cubes:

1. Cut off both ends of the eggplant.

2. Slice the eggplant crosswise (the short way) into 1/4-inch-thick rounds.

3. Stack the rounds in piles, about 6 slices high.

4. Cut each stack into strips, then rotate the stack and cut across the strips perpendicularly to make cubes.

Cover the bottom of a sauté pan with 1/4 inch of olive oil and warm over a medium-high flame. Once the oil is quite hot, add a single layer of eggplant and cook until tender and golden, then remove with a slotted spoon onto a plate. If all your eggplant doesn’t fit in your pan, cook it in batches.

When the eggplant is done, you should still have some olive oil in the pan; if not, add some more. You want about 4 tablespoons of oil in the pan before adding the garlic. Once the olive oil has cooled a little, add the garlic and cook until lightly gold and fragrant—do not let it burn, or it will be bitter.

Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring often and pressing gently with the back of a wooden spoon, until thick and saucy but not dry. Add salt to taste. Add the eggplant cubes to the tomatoes, cook for another minute or so, then pull from the heat—and still off the heat, stir in a handful of fresh torn basil leaves.

Note: Rachel Roddy, an Englishwoman, has lived in Italy for over twenty years. She, her partner, and their son divide their time between Rome and Sicily. She has written three superb cookbooks, Five Quarters, A Kitchen in Rome, and An A - Z of Pasta.