Friday, August 09, 2013

Eggplant Scamorza Pasta


Thursday 8 August
This was partially inspired by Pasta alla Norma; but also incorporated memories of a delicious eggplant dish we had in Orvieto, plus love for the eggplant parmegiana Karen's Nanny used to cook in the old days.


It started with three Chinese eggplants, cut into little-finger-sized chunks.  In a heated pan, added oil, and put half the eggplant pieces in, leaving them to crisp undisturbed on one side until they were toasted; after that, we could toss them and crisp them on the other sides.  Then added salt with a shake of dried oregano.  Repeated with the second batch.  Then came a couple of cloves of chopped garlic into the pan, and a heaping Tbsp. of tomato paste to fry with the eggplant.  After a half a minute, added three big tomatoes, skinned and chopped and tossed into the pan.  While that cooked down, the water boiled and the rigatoni went in to cook.
When the pasta was cooked, and the tomatoes had broken down, added a handful of torn basil leaves to the sauce, then the drained rigatoni, and at the last minute, 5 oz. of smoked mozzarella cut up in tiny cubes.  And it fulfilled all our expectations.

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