I have Sicilian origins and this pasta is sacred to me. In the description of the video you will find a written recipe. This specialty of the city of Catania was made as a culinary tribute to the most beautiful work of the famous composer Vincenzo Bellini: the Norma. This is the real recipe.
A tasty pasta dish, seasoned with fresh tomatoes and a cascade of fried aubergines. But it wouldn’t be pasta alla Norma without fresh basil leaves and a generous portion of salted ricotta added at the end of cooking: all the Mediterranean scents combined in one dish!
Pasta alla Norma is a dish with a unique and enveloping taste, a vegetarian dish, prepared with simple and genuine ingredients as Sicilian mothers, grandmothers and aunts still do.
Ingredients
Rigati celery 320 g
Salted Ricotta 200 g
Aubergines 500 g
Extra virgin olive oil without exaggeration
Garlic 2 cloves
Copper tomatoes 850 g
Fresh basil 10 g
Salt up, just enough
TO FRY
Extra virgin olive oil (As needed)
HOW TO PREPARE PASTA ALLA NORMA
To prepare the pasta alla Norma, take the copper tomatoes and rinse them then dry them and cut them into quarters. In a pan with a thick bottom pour a drizzle of oil and fry two cloves of garlic clean and whole, then if you wish you can remove them. When the garlic has sautéed for a few moments, pour in the tomatoes and cook over very low heat, covering with a lid; leave to cook for about twenty minutes until the tomatoes are soft and have released the sauce. Once ready, transfer them to a vegetable processor placed on a bowl and pass them in order to obtain a juicy and smooth pulp.
Transfer everything back into the pan and season with salt; cook for 10-15 minutes more until it has shrunk. Then boil a pan with plenty of salted water to boil and once it boils salty. In the meantime, wash the aubergines, dry them well and trim them, then cut them into slices of a few mm 9.
If you are using commonly sold eggplants, there is no need to purge them, unless you know that the ones you are using are rather bitter. Fry the aubergines in plenty of extra virgin olive oil heated to a temperature of 170° without exceeding it (keep the temperature constant by frying a few aubergines at a time and checking it with a kitchen thermometer) 10. As they are golden brown, drain them with a skimmer 11 and transfer them to a sheet of fried paper to absorb the excess oil. Then salt them to taste.
Cook the pasta al dente and when it is almost ready, pour the basil leaves into the sauce over low heat, stir and add the drained pasta directly into the pan. Stir well to flavour.
Transfer the pasta onto serving plates, season with abundant slices of fried aubergines each portion, then sprinkle with salted ricotta cheese with the large mesh grater. Serve your pasta alla Norma with a few slices of eggplant placed in the center of the table so that diners can add them if necessary.
TIP
You can remove the garlic cloves before passing the tomatoes. You can add the aubergines to the ready sauce if you prefer, it depends on the version of pasta alla Norma you are fond of! The pasta suitable for this preparation is short pasta such as celery rigati, rigatoni or half sleeves.
STORAGE
It is advisable to eat pasta alla Norma immediately. Freezing is not recommended.
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