Hello!

Pasta alla Norma, although named after the heroine of Bellini's opera, a native of Catani, sings the whole of Sicily in the eyes of the culinary and tourist world, well, some English chefs are not ready to delve into who Norma is. Ggg. This pasta is so strongly associated with Sicilian cuisine, as are the Bolognese and Carbonara stews with Emilia Romagna and Lazio, respectively. And as is customary, this pasta is made by sauce - spicy-tomato-aromatic with eggplant, which can be used in different forms, now I will show the version of this Katani specialty that is most saturated with eggplant.

Traditionally, they take short corrugated pasta (penne, rigatoni, fusilli), less often spaghetti. I showed the variant with tagliatelle, so that guests can easily repeat at home from and to. I'll give the recipe along with the noodle dough, but you can whip up store-bought penne, for example, and all that remains is to prepare the sauce and eggplant.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

For the basic test:

- flour 300 g, water - 150 g, olive oil (OM) - 30 g, salt - 3 pinches.

- pepperoncino - 3-4 pcs.,

- basil - 5-6 sprigs,

- eggplant (cubes) - 2 pcs.,

- eggplant for baking - 1 pc.

For filing:

- eggplant (slices) - 1 pc.,

- French fries (from two eggplants),

- deep-frying oil - 200 g,

- salted ricotta (pressed, aged) or parmesan - to taste,

- basil - a few leaves.

In total, we need 4 eggplants. Medium. We bake one, with two we remove the skin with a thin layer and chop the pulp into a cube, the fourth will go for serving.

In addition, we need a base or, I showed it a hundred times, because I am making blanks on its base. But you can make a quick option - sauté garlic on OM, add dried Italian herbs, splash a little dry white, evaporate and add tomatoes in their own juice (peeled or cubed). Boil until thickened for 20 minutes and voila. At MK we cooked the sauce in two machines at once cookingShef .

Well, now the recipe itself. I tried to make it as consistent and technological as possible ...

1. Knead plastic dough, set aside for 30 minutes in a film.
2. Prepare a small deep-frying pan, a large pot of hot water for blanching the cubes and boiling the noodles.
3. Prepare a large pan for the sauce, taking into account the fact that the pasta should then fit in it and mix freely.
4. Roll out the dough to the minimum thickness. Dry for 15 minutes and cut into noodles in any usual way, sprinkle with flour. I described all this in great detail a couple of years ago in a recipe.
5. Bake one whole eggplant at 180C until soft. Peel, coarsely chop the flesh.
6. Remove the skin from two eggplants in a thin layer and cut the flesh into a 1 * 1 cm cube.
7. Cut the skin into very thin strips. Fry in preheated oil at T = 180C for no longer than 2 minutes (only until crisp). Throw the French fries on a sieve, immediately add salt. Set aside by placing a sieve on paper towels.

1. Blanch the cubes for 2 minutes in salted boiling water.
2. In the meantime, prepare the sauce:
   • Place 200 ml of base sauce in a large frying pan, heat up,
   • add blanched cubes and pepperoncino (or any hot pepper of your choice), mix, boil for 3-5 minutes over medium heat,
   • add the pulp of the baked eggplant, mix, cook for another 2 minutes,
   • season with salt, pepper, sugar
   • add fresh basil.

10. Cut the last eggplant (preferably the smallest) into diagonal slices 2-3 mm thick, fry on the grill.

11. In parallel, boil the noodles in the same water where the cubes were blanched, cook for 1 minute after boiling again. Transfer the noodles to the pan with the sauce, remove from heat and stir.

12. Serve the tagliatelle with a “volcano”, spread the grilled slices along the slopes, in the center a little more sauce from the bottom of the pan + grated cheese. Top with French fries and basil.

13. Enjoy dreaming of sunny Sicily.

And as a bonus.

These are the interesting servings I found from Italian chefs when preparing for the master class, and for some reason they all have spaghetti on them ..)) I think it’s just that their configuration leaves the chefs room for imagination…

Ingredients for Sicilian pasta alla norma

• Pasta - 250 g;
• Eggplant - 2 pcs;
• Tomatoes - 700 g;
• Mozzarella - 70 g;
• Basil - 0.5 bunch;
• Garlic - 2 teeth;
• Olive oil - 100 ml;
• Sea salt - 0.5 tsp;
• Sugar - 0.5 tsp;
• Black pepper (freshly ground) - 0.5 tsp;

Sicilian pasta alla norma recipe

For this sauce, it is better to take white eggplants, they have absolutely no bitterness, so there is no need to salt and keep under pressure. I love the bitterness of eggplant, so I cooked with white and dark.

And so ... we cut the eggplant into rings, if necessary, salt it, put it in a colander and put the load, for min. 20. Leave a few rings for decoration, cut others into cubes. Drain excess liquid and fry in olive oil until soft / golden.

Lay out on paper. towels to absorb excess oil. At this time, you can already put a pot of water for pasta.

In another pan, heat oil and fry crushed garlic, remove. Add blanched/peeled and diced tomatoes. (I took one large tomato, peeled it and chopped it, and left the cherry tomatoes (200g) whole, stewed them together with the tomatoes, and added the rest (approximately 150g) along with the eggplants so that they remained whole). Simmer/boil for 7-10 minutes.

Combine eggplants with tomatoes (except for those for decoration) and simmer all together for 5-7 minutes. At the last minute, add basil leaves, sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Drain the water from the pasta (reserving a little water, in case the sauce is thick) Combine with vegetable sauce, mix. Warm up on a small fire (to combine flavors) for a minute

That's business then)) and the taste is great !!! Eat well, to health)))

Pasta alla norma is one of the most popular in Sicily. It is simply prepared, but, despite the simplicity of preparation, it has grace. And every hostess has her own little secrets that make this dish insanely delicious. It captures the very essence of the island: ripe, fleshy Sicilian tomatoes, bright purple eggplant and Sicilian ricotta find unity in this dish.

This classic is the symbol of the city of Catania.

A delicious and vibrant recipe of Sicilian gastronomy, pasta alla norma is a triumph of combining Mediterranean flavors. The pasta was named after Vincenzo Bellini's famous opera Norma. The story goes that in the 19th century, Nino Martolio, a Sicilian writer, after tasting this dish, was so amazed that he exclaimed "Norma", emphasizing that this pasta is as perfect as Bellini's "Norma" and that this is a real masterpiece. Since then, the name has remained.

I had an amazing experience of making pasta alla norma with a real Sicilian hostess, Signora Silvia Palazzolo. Silvia, as befits a real Sicilian housewife, cooks simply gorgeous and always with a smile on her face. I think this is one of her secrets to make the dish even tastier.

Dear reader, to find an answer to any question about holidays in Italy, use. I answer all questions in the comments under the relevant articles at least once a day. Your guide in Italy Artur Yakutsevich.

She shared her little secrets with me, and under her strict guidance I prepared this traditional pasta.

Secrets from Signora Silvia:

1. Do not pour out the broth that remains from cooking the pasta, because if suddenly it is not enough, then you can add this broth so that the pasta is not dry;
2. Use two types of tomato sauce. The first one is pre-cooked or canned homemade tomato paste, which makes the dish incredibly tasty because it contains very little water. It is important to stew the tomatoes to the consistency of mashed potatoes so that almost all the liquid has evaporated. The second is a sauce of fresh tomatoes and meat stewed over low heat for 3 hours;
3. For pasta, use diced eggplant and decorate with long eggplant sticks. So the dish looks spectacular;
4. It is penne or buccati that are ideal for pasta alla norma, as the sauce also penetrates into the tube pasta, thereby making the dish even juicier,
5. Cooking with love!

tomato paste recipe

For pasta alla norma we need:

• 500 gr. penne paste;
• 250 gr. homemade tomato paste;
• 300 gr. ripe tomatoes;
• 100 gr. meat, cut into small cubes;
• 4 eggplants;
• A sprig of basil;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• Olive oil for frying;
• Salt and pepper to taste;
• Ricotta Salata is a mature cheese with a salty taste.

Cooking:

1. First we'll deal with the sauce. We heat the olive oil in a frying pan and lightly fry the garlic and meat and listen carefully, when they start to “speak”, then add the tomatoes in cubes. And we simmer on low heat for 2-3 hours, yes, just enough so that the meat gives up all its juice and absorbs the juice of tomatoes. Of course, if you do not have so much time, then you can limit yourself to an hour, but a truly unified and harmonious taste of the sauce appears after 2-3 hours.
2. At this time, we can work on eggplant. First, cut the eggplant lengthwise, and cut the side parts into longitudinal strips, and all other parts into cubes.

1. Now the critical part - as it is important to ensure that the eggplant does not burn. We heat the olive oil in a saucepan, 5-6 centimeters from the bottom, and fry the eggplants in hot oil. As soon as our cubes and strips become golden in color, we quickly throw them out on a plate with a paper towel, allowing excess oil to drain. Set the strips aside.
2. 15 minutes before the end of the stewing of the sauce, add homemade tomato paste. Usually in the season all Sicilian housewives stock up on similar sauces. They stew tomatoes on low heat until smooth, and then rub through a sieve. The smell of this paste is incredible, as if it had just picked tomatoes from the garden.
3. For Italians, this is the most trifling matter, but not yet in our latitudes - it is to boil the pasta to the state of "al dente". Drop the penne pasta into a large pot of boiling lightly salted water; it is important that the penne float freely. The lid does not need to be covered. We cook the pasta for about 4-5 minutes, after which we begin to try it every 30 seconds until cooked, so to speak, so that it is on the tooth. "Al dente" pasta remains firm inside, but not brittle. When the pasta is ready, we discard it in a colander, and the remaining broth is set aside. If the pasta is a little undercooked, it's okay, as we will combine it with hot tomato sauce, which will give it its warmth.
4. And now the most interesting thing: we add our pasta to the bright burgundy fragrant tomato sauce, gently mixing the penne into the red mass so that the sauce envelops the pasta from all sides, nourishing and making it juicy. Add our golden eggplant cubes, mix everything thoroughly and remove from heat.

1. And of course, no Sicilian hostess will serve a dish without decorating it. Sprinkle with ricotta to taste. Someone likes more, but it is important not to overdo it, as this cheese is salty. Arrange eggplant strips on top and basil in the center. And here it is - the perfect Norma dish!

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Cooking instructions

20 minutes Print

1. Put the pasta to boil: to do this, boil as much water as possible (2 liters is ideal, then the pasta will rotate in the pan and boil evenly), salt it. Cook spaghetti al dente, that is, to the tooth. Usually, they reach this state in a minute or two less than indicated on the package. But it's better to try from time to time. Tool Pasta pot The main rule of a good pasta pot is that it should be large. In order to cook just a pound of spaghetti, you need at least five liters of water. Another problem is to drain so much hot water. The problem can be solved by buying a pot with a special insert that can be removed with spaghetti, and all the water will remain in the pot.

2. Pour olive oil into a heated frying pan and send finely chopped garlic. After frying it a little, add all the shells, after half a minute, in turn, sliced ​​​​squid rings, slices of cuttlefish and boiled octopus. Shrimp cut in half across, tomatoes in half - and there too. After a minute, pour in the broth and wine, sprinkle with parsley and pepper.
Let the sauce simmer - let it evaporate by half. Pull out the shells so as not to interfere. Around this time, spaghetti will be ready - they need to be thrown into a pan with seafood, mixed, let stew for another minute so that the pasta is saturated with the flavors of the sauce - and remove from heat.
Crib How to prepare shrimp

3. In the meantime, flour a smooth surface and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough as thin as possible. You should get a round elastic sheet with a diameter of fifteen centimeters larger than the plate in which you will serve spaghetti on the table.

4. Put pasta in this same plate: for example, a slide of spaghetti mixed with seafood, and shells around. Beat the egg and brush the edges of the plate with this egg - plentifully enough so that the dough then sticks to them properly.

5. Cover the plate with pasta with a thin sheet of dough, so that it is not stretched, but lies freely. Run your hand along the contour of the plate - you need to make sure that the dough is stuck to the edges - and quickly insert a long straw under the dough, a straw for drinks. Through it, inflate a high dome of dough and then carefully pull it out.

6. Put the plate in the oven: preheat it to 300 degrees or to the maximum that your oven reaches, and turn it off so that there is no air circulation and the dough does not fall off. After a minute or two, when folds appear on the dough - which means it has seized - turn on the oven and hold for another three to five minutes, until a golden patina.

7. Serve spaghetti on the table under the dome - and cut it just before eating: those few seconds after removing the pasta from the pasta, when dense steam rises from the plate with the aroma of the warm sea, and there is a great meaning to the whole story. The same effect can be achieved by baking a plate in a bag of parchment, but this, of course, is not at all as beautiful.

Never be afraid to do what you can't. Remember: the ark was built by amateurs. Professionals built the Titanic. Dessert without cheese is like a beauty without one eye - Jean-Antelme Brillat-SavarinSeize the moment. Think of all those women on the Titanic who forgot dessert. - Erma Bombeck My weaknesses are food and men. It's in that order. - Dolly Parton If you went to the store for bread, the chances that you will leave with only a loaf of bread is one in three billion. - Erma Bombeck All we need is love, but a little chocolate here and there won't hurt either. - Charles Schultz Don't put off until dinner what you can eat at lunch. - A.S. Pushkin I'm afraid of Hennessy heartburn or caviar allergy, that in a large apartment on Rublyovka I'll get lost at night and die. - KVN song Everything that I like in life is either immoral or it makes you fat. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld I use wine in my cooking. Sometimes I even add it to dishes. - V.S. Fields. How can you govern a country in which there are 246 varieties of cheese?" - Charles de Gaulle What a disgusting thing, what a disgusting thing is your aspic fish! - Hippolyte in the film "The Irony of Fate" I simply cannot eat caviar, but I have to force myself. - The heroine Audrey Totu in the film "Fatal Beauty" In major troubles I deny myself everything except food and drink. What, are you crazy? A dear friend flies in from afar for a minute - and you don’t have a cake! - Carlson, who lives on the roof. There is a bakery on our street called "Bonjour, croissant!" It makes me want to go to Paris and open a bakery " Hello, toast!” – Fran Lebowitz. - Marina R. The food here is absolutely terrible and the portions are too small. - Woody Allen Robot will never replace a human! - Cannibal If you want to know me, eat with me. - James Joyce Uh, dear! What is a peacock-mavlin? You don't see - we eat... - Genie from M-f "The Adventures of Munchausen" If the country does not have at least fifty varieties of cheese and good wine, then the country has reached the handle. Salvador Dali By chewing food thoroughly, you help society. - Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, "12 chairs" Nothing decorates the table like firecrackers in olive oil! - Popular wisdom. If guests suddenly come to you, and there is nothing in the house, go down to the cellar and take a leg of lamb. - Elena MolokhovetsA honey... I can't understand what the secret is... If there is honey... then it's not there right away! - Winnie the Pooh I will be photographed today for the magazine "Skilled Culinary". I need to take a shower and buy new insoles! - Freken BokYa has not eaten lobsters for three days. - A snickering official (KVN joke) Hunger is not an aunt - she will not run away into the forest. - Folk wisdom Nothing improves the taste of home-cooked meals like studying prices in a restaurant. - folk wisdom