Pasta alla Norma Recipe
Bright with explosive flavors, this pasta alla norma authentic recipe, brings you the tastes of a classic Sicilian pasta dish from Catania. With eggplants, tomatoes, a generous amount of salted ricotta cheese plus fresh basil, this beautiful dish comes easily together in no time.
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Servings: 4
Calories: 1286kcal
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Ingredients
- 1 eggplant large
- 11.2 oz Pasta - penne
- 13.5 oz neutral oil seed oil sunflower oil
- 2.2 lbs Tomatoes
- ⅔ cup Ricotta salata cheese
- few leaves of Basil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
Making the fresh tomato sauce
- Wash and dry the tomatoes, then cut them into quarters. If your tomatoes have a thin skin, there is no need to remove the skin.
- Place the tomatoes in a pot and cover with a lid. Cook on very low heat for about 20 minutes until tomatoes release their juice.
- Stir occasionally to make sure the sauce doesn’t stick to the pan.
- Once the tomatoes are ready, strain to remove any seeds or peel.
- Use a hand mixer or electric blender to puree the tomatoes to obtain a creamy texture.
- Add salt, if needed, a little olive oil and basil leaves to the mixture.
Preparing the eggplants
- While the tomatoes are cooking, cut off the edges of the eggplants and peel the skin off.
- Heat the oil in a deep large skillet on high heat.
- Cut the eggplants on the long side about ¼ inch or 7mm in thickness.
- Make sure the eggplants are dry before cooking them in hot oil.
- Cook the eggplant slices until they turn golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, remove cooked eggplants and place them in a bowl. Keep the oil on the eggplants as we use it to dress the pasta.
Cooking the pasta
- In a large pot, bring water to boil. Add salt and then cook the pasta al dente.
- Once the pasta is cooked, drain it very well and then mix it to the pot with the tomatoes.
Serving Pasta alla Norma
- Serve the pasta with tomato sauce onto plates.
- Top the plates with generous portions of fried eggplants cut up into slices.
- Grate a fair amount of salty ricotta cheese on the plates.
- And, top each plate with fresh basil leaves.
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Notes
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When frying the eggplants, cook them batch by batch. When the first few are ready, remove them all and then add the next batch. If you mix the raw and cooked eggplant slices it drops the temperature of the oil.
You can reuse the sunflower oil from eggplants for cooking at least 2 or 3 times.
It is generally recommended to eat pasta alla norma immediately after cooking. It does not freeze well.
Nutrition
Serving: 1 | Calories: 1286kcal | Carbohydrates: 77g | Protein: 18g | Fat: 103g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 82g | Cholesterol: 21mg | Sodium: 54mg | Potassium: 1074mg | Fiber: 9g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 2288IU | Vitamin C: 37mg | Calcium: 137mg | Iron: 2mg
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