Italian Penne with Smoked Eggplant, Tomato Confit and Ricotta Salata | Penne con Melanzane Affumicate, Pomodoro Confit e Ricotta Salata
This is pasta alla Norma taken apart and put back together with a different tool: fire. Instead of frying the eggplant, the whole vegetable is burned black over a flame until the inside collapses into smoke scented pulp, and that pulp becomes the body of the sauce. The tomato is not simmered either. It goes into a low oven with oil and garlic for two hours and comes out sweet, dense and only just holding its shape.
Ricotta salata stays exactly where Catania puts it, grated over the top at the last second and never stirred in. It is the salt and the sharpness of the plate. Everything below it has turned soft and sweet, so the cheese is the only element doing the opposite job.
Penne are the right tube for this. The quill shape, cut on a long diagonal at both ends, was named after the pen nib it copies, and those open angles scoop up diced eggplant and whole confit tomatoes in a way a round cut never manages. Look for a bronze die and a short wide tube rather than the long thin kind, which snaps under a heavy sauce.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 40 minutes. Cook: 2 hours 15 minutes, mostly unattended. Total: about 3 hours. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Sicily, Catania.
The Story
Catania tells a story about the name. The playwright Nino Martoglio, served this pasta at a friends table in the early twentieth century, is supposed to have called it a Norma, meaning it was as perfect as the opera Vincenzo Bellini had written a century earlier for the city that produced them both. Whether he said it or not the label stuck, and it is one of the few Italian dishes named after a work of art rather than a place or a trade.
The ingredients underneath the name are older and less romantic. Eggplant came to Sicily with the Arabs and took root in the volcanic soil around Catania, where the long violet varieties still grow on terraces below Etna. Ricotta salata is the shepherds answer to a cheese that will not keep: fresh ricotta salted, pressed and dried until it grates rather than spreads. Add tomato and basil and you have a dish assembled from what eastern Sicily had in August.
Smoking the eggplant is not a foreign idea imported to make the dish look modern. Across the Mediterranean the oldest way to cook an eggplant was to bury it in embers, and the charred and scraped vegetable appears in Sicilian home cooking long before anyone owned a deep fryer. This version simply chooses that older method over the frying pan and lets the smoke, rather than the oil, carry the dish. The confit tomato does the same from the other direction, concentrating by time instead of by reduction in a pot.
Ingredients
For the smoked eggplant
Globe or violet eggplants, 2, about 1 3/4 lb (800 g)
Garlic clove, 1
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Lemon juice, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Fine sea salt, 3/4 tsp (5 g)
For the tomato confit
Datterino tomatoes, 1 lb (450 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Garlic cloves, lightly crushed, 3
Thyme sprigs, 3
Granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp (2 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
For the fried eggplant garnish
Eggplant in 1/2 inch (1 cm) dice, 1 cup (150 g)
Sunflower oil for frying, 2 cups (480 ml)
Fine sea salt, to taste
For the pasta
Bronze cut penne rigate, 14 oz (400 g)
Water, 5 qt (4.7 L)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tbsp (35 g)
For finishing
Ricotta salata, 2 1/2 oz (70 g)
Basil leaves, 12
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Step 1
Start the tomato confit. Heat the oven to 250°F (120°C). Halve the tomatoes, lay them cut side up in one layer in a small dish and tuck the crushed garlic and thyme between them. Season with the salt and sugar, then pour the olive oil over so they sit halfway submerged. Give them 2 hours. They should shrink by a third, wrinkle at the edges and stay whole when lifted. Keep the perfumed oil left in the dish, because it goes into the sauce later.
Step 2
Burn the eggplants. Set them whole on a gas burner at high flame, or on a very hot charcoal grill, and turn them every few minutes with tongs. The skin has to go completely black and split, and the vegetable has to sag when you lift it. This takes 15 to 20 minutes and it will smell alarming. Half blackened eggplant gives a sauce that tastes of nothing in particular.
Step 3
Drain the pulp. Put the hot eggplants in a colander over a bowl, cut them open lengthwise and drain them 20 minutes as they cool. A surprising amount of dark bitter liquid comes out and all of it is thrown away. Scrape the flesh from the skins with a spoon, leaving every trace of charred skin behind, and chop it roughly on a board. Do not blend it: a purée turns gluey and loses the fibrous texture that makes this work.
Step 4
Build the eggplant base. Warm 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide pan over low heat with the whole garlic clove until fragrant but not coloured, then discard the garlic. Add the chopped smoked pulp and cook gently for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until it tightens and stops looking watery. Season with the salt and lemon juice. The lemon is there to lift the smoke, not to be tasted, so add it, stir and taste again.
Step 5
Fry the eggplant dice. Heat the frying oil to 350°F (175°C) in a small deep pan. Fry the dice in two batches for about 3 minutes each, until golden and crisp at the corners, and lift them onto paper. Salt them the moment they come out. At the right temperature they absorb very little oil and stay crisp for an hour; in merely warm oil they behave like sponges.
Step 6
Salt the water and cook the penne. Bring 5 quarts (4.7 L) to a rolling boil and add 2 tablespoons (35 g) of coarse salt. The eggplant base carries almost no salt and the ricotta salata arrives only at the end, so this water is where the pasta gets seasoned. Cook the penne 2 minutes short of the packet time: they should still be distinctly firm, because they finish in the pan.
Step 7
Finish in the pan. Ladle 1 cup (240 ml) of pasta water into the eggplant base, add the confit oil and bring it to a brisk simmer. Drain the penne, tip them in and toss over medium heat for 2 minutes, adding water until the sauce clings and the pan bottom stays just wet. Off the heat, fold in three quarters of the confit tomatoes whole and most of the fried dice, and rest it 30 seconds.
Plating
Use warm shallow bowls, around 140°F (60°C), hot enough to hold the dish through a long first course but not so hot that the fried dice soften against the porcelain. Everything here is dark and soft, so the plating has to build height and contrast.
Lift the penne with tongs into a loose mound, letting a few tubes stand at an angle. Arrange the reserved confit tomatoes around and on top so their red shows, and scatter the rest of the fried dice over the surface where they stay crisp rather than sinking. Grate the ricotta salata over each bowl at the pass, in a generous even veil, never mixed into the pan.
Tear nothing. Lay the basil leaves on whole, three or four to a bowl, and finish with a thread of raw olive oil and a turn of black pepper. No parmesan, no extra herbs, no cream. The plate has four flavours on purpose, smoke, sweet tomato, sharp cheese and basil, and every extra ingredient takes one away.
Professional Technique
The whole dish rests on one substitution: smoke in place of frying oil. A fried eggplant tastes of eggplant and of the fat it drank. A charred one tastes of phenolic compounds deposited on the flesh while the skin burns, the same family that flavours grilled meat, and they are soluble enough to spread through a sauce. That is why the vegetable must go black all over and why an oven roasted one cannot stand in for it.
Confit is the second technique and it works by time rather than temperature. At 250°F (120°C) the tomato never boils, so its cell walls soften instead of bursting and water leaves as vapour while the sugars concentrate inside a fruit that is still whole. A reduced sauce gets its intensity by evaporating in a pan, which also cooks off the fresh volatile aromas. Confit keeps them. The oil left behind is worth as much as the tomatoes and goes straight into the sauce.
The third is keeping the three textures separate. Smoked pulp gives body, fried dice give crunch, confit tomato gives bursts of sweetness. Cooked together they converge on one soft texture within minutes. Everything therefore meets in the pan as late as possible, the dice and a quarter of the tomatoes are held back for the surface, and the pasta rests only long enough to settle.
Texture and Moisture Control
Eggplant is roughly ninety percent water and most of the technique here is deciding where that water goes. Draining the charred pulp removes the bitter liquid that would thin the sauce and dull the smoke. Cooking it a further 6 to 8 minutes drives off more. Skip either step and the base looks right in the pan, then floods the bowl five minutes later.
The emulsion is built from pasta water and two oils, the confit oil and the oil the pulp was cooked in. Starch from the cooking water holds them together, so the water has to be cloudy and the tossing brisk enough to keep the fat suspended. Work over medium heat and judge it by the pan bottom: a thin film that closes slowly behind the spoon is correct, a dry pan means add water, a pool means keep tossing.
The fried dice are the one element that only loses. They peak about ten minutes out of the oil and soften from there, faster once they meet a wet sauce. Fry them last, keep them on paper somewhere warm and dry, and put most of them on the surface rather than through the pasta. The same applies to the ricotta salata, grated to order and never left to sweat.
Professional Mise en Place
Almost everything can be finished hours ahead, which is why this works for eight as easily as for four. Only the frying and the final toss belong to service time.
Equipment and tools
Gas burner or charcoal grill for charring, and long tongs
Small baking dish that holds the tomatoes in one layer
Colander set over a bowl for draining the pulp
Wide saute pan for the base and the final toss
Small deep pan and a frying thermometer, spider, microplane
Prepared ahead
Tomato confit and its oil, up to 3 days, refrigerated in a sealed jar
Eggplant charred, drained and chopped, up to 2 days, refrigerated
Eggplant base cooked and seasoned, up to 2 days, rewarmed gently
Dice cut and held in cold water, drained and dried before frying
Ricotta salata wrapped in paper, never in plastic
Service setup
Eggplant base warm in a wide pan, loosened with a little pasta water
Confit tomatoes and their oil at room temperature beside the stove
Frying oil up to 350°F (175°C), paper and salt ready
Basil picked whole, microplane and cheese within reach
Bowls warmed, pasta water held hot and cloudy
Chef Tips
Choose eggplants that feel light for their size and give slightly under a thumb. A heavy dense one is full of mature seeds, which is where the bitterness lives, and no amount of draining fixes it. The long violet Sicilian type has fewer seeds than the round globe.
Char the eggplants the day before if you can. The smoke keeps developing overnight in the refrigerator and the flavour is rounder and less acrid on the second day. This is one of the few components in Italian cooking that genuinely improves with a rest, and it also removes the messiest job from the day you are cooking.
Make double the tomato confit. It takes the same two hours, keeps three days, and the oil is worth having on bread, under a fish fillet or folded into a bean salad.
With no gas flame and no grill, the broiler will do but needs help. Prick the eggplants, set them close to the element and turn them every 5 minutes for about 35 minutes until the skin is uniformly black and blistered. Add a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika to the base at the end.
Common Mistakes
Not burning the eggplant enough. A skin merely browned in patches leaves soft roasted vegetable rather than smoke, and the point of the dish disappears. The skin must go uniformly black and split and the flesh must collapse.
Skipping the drain. Charred eggplant carries a lot of dark bitter liquid. Left in, it thins the sauce and turns the bowl grey and watery. Twenty minutes in a colander costs nothing.
Blending the pulp. A machine turns it into a smooth gluey paste with a pasty mouthfeel. Chop it on a board instead and keep the loose fibrous strands, which are what let the sauce cling to the penne without sliding.
Stirring the ricotta salata into the pan. Warmed and mixed in, it melts into a salty background note and stops being a separate element. It belongs on top, grated at the last moment, dry and sharp against everything soft underneath.
Frying the dice in oil that is not hot enough. Below about 340°F (170°C) the eggplant absorbs oil instead of sealing, and comes out heavy and limp rather than crisp. Use a thermometer, fry in two batches, and salt them straight out of the pan.
Wine Pairing
Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio DOC: Volcanic ash gives this Campanian wine a smoky mineral streak that recognises the charred eggplant as kin rather than fighting it. The red, from piedirosso, is light in tannin and high in acidity, exactly the shape a confit tomato needs. Serve it at 57°F (14°C).
Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC: A deeply coloured dry rosé from montepulciano, with far more grip than its colour suggests. It has red fruit to meet the sweetness of the confit and enough acidity to cut the fried dice, and almost no tannin to clash with the saltiness of the ricotta salata. If you serve one bottle with this dish, this is the safest choice.
Verdicchio di Matelica DOC: The tighter, more inland Verdicchio, grown at altitude and noticeably more saline and austere than its coastal cousin. That austerity is useful against a sweet sauce, and the bitter almond finish lines up with the faint bitterness left in the eggplant. A white that refreshes without turning the plate fruity.
Aglianico del Taburno DOCG: For a colder evening and a bigger appetite. Aglianico brings firm tannin and dark plum and tobacco aromatics, and that tannin has something to hold on to in the fried eggplant and the grated cheese. Choose a bottle with five years behind it and decant it for half an hour.
Martina Franca DOC: A dry Puglian white built on verdeca and bianco d Alessano, pale, low in alcohol and gently herbal. It is the quiet option here and earns its place by staying out of the way of the smoke, which aromatic whites tend to trample. Serve it very cold.
Storage & Reheating
Both long preparations keep well. The tomato confit lasts 3 days refrigerated in a sealed jar under its own oil, and the eggplant base 2 days in an airtight container. Take both out 30 minutes before use, because the oil sets solid and cold pulp is slow to loosen in the pan.
Both components freeze well. The eggplant base holds 2 months in a sealed container with no loss of smoke, which is unusual. The confit tomatoes go soft on thawing and are best crushed into the base rather than used whole, so freeze them separately. Never freeze the fried dice, which come back damp and grey.
Dressed pasta keeps one day covered in the refrigerator. Reheat it in a wide pan with 2 tablespoons of water over medium heat, tossing for about 2 minutes, which relaxes the starch and rebuilds the coating. Avoid the microwave, which cooks the penne further and leaves them blown. Fry a fresh handful of dice and grate the cheese again.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings:
Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 33 g
Saturated Fat: 7 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 24 g
Cholesterol: 18 mg
Sodium: 720 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 86 g
Fiber: 9 g
Total Sugars: 12 g
Added Sugars: 0.5 g
Protein: 20 g
Lactose: 1.1 g
Principal micronutrients: potassium, vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, manganese, lycopene
These figures are estimates. The fat depends heavily on how much oil the fried dice take up, and most of the salt in the cooking water is poured away.
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