I first had pasta alla norma on the Trapani peninsula of Sicily. I ordered it on a whim, remembering that it’s a dish created in the region, but when it arrived, I thought it looked a tad ordinary. Ordinary that is, until I took a bite.

Holy moly.

Bright tomatoes, creamy eggplant, the umami of aged ricotta salata, and the overarching savory quality of herbs.

I decided to start making it, but frankly felt daunted. How could I capture those flavors, like summer on a plate? There was clearly some secret ingredient in there, some herb I’ve never purchased, some spice I couldn’t recognize. Only once I moved back to Italy and had the time to putter around the kitchen, contemplating flavor notes and nuance did I try my hand.

Fantastic.

And it hit me—of course it’s fantastic! As I’ve learned from cooking in Umbria, the key to flavor is freshness. So I guess there is a secret ingredient. Really good ingredients. That’s it.

Punto e basta.

So don’t shake your head at the few ingredients and the simple process. The math checks out. It’s amazing. Try it and thank me later.

Pasta alla Norma

Ingredients

• two eggplant, firm and heavy, the best you can find, about 1 1/2 pounds

• plenty of olive oil

• salt, pepper

• one pound of dried pasta — I like it with short pasta like rigatoni or penne, but people do make it with long pasta. It’s up to you.

• 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic

• quarter teaspoon chili flakes (or more to taste)

• one can of high quality whole tomatoes, or 1 1/2 pounds of fresh tomatoes, deskinned and chopped, seeds removed

• one teaspoon dried oregano

• a big handful of basil, sliced into thin ribbons (You can take the leaves, stack them, roll them into a cigar, and then slice from one end to the other to get a nice pile of basil threads)

• 1/2 to 1 cup of grated ricotta salata. If you can’t get it aged, add some grated Pecorino Romano to the ricotta

Process

1. People often fry the eggplant and this makes no sense to me. Yes, I love fried eggplant as much as the next person who would eat fried cardboard if it came with a dipping sauce. But when you fry eggplant, you get none of that tasty coloration. You can pan fry it instead, but I’ve found roasting eggplant to be the best way to coax as much flavor as you can out of it, with minimal effort. So first preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Cut the eggplant into slices lengthwise, then cut the slices in half, and now cut into logs about about the size of the short pasta. The eggplant should be as uniform as possible so that some don’t burn while the rest doesn’t fully cook.

3. Toss the eggplant with enough olive oil to appear soaked into the eggplant, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread in an even layer in a pan and slip it into the oven to roast until crisped and brown (but not black) on one side. Then remove from the oven and let cool. Do not toss with the tomato sauce until ready to serve. Eggplant and tomatoes taste great together, but they aren’t chemical buddies so they bring each other down if you mingle them too soon.

4. Start your pasta water, make sure there’s enough salt so that it tastes like sea water. When boiling, add your pasta, stir. When the pasta is done, scoop out a couple of ladlefuls of the water, reserve, and then drain the pasta.

5. In the meantime, start your tomato sauce. Use several good glugs of olive olive, add in the chopped garlic and the pinch of pepper flakes. Be ready with the tomatoes, as you do not want the garlic to brown. As soon as you can smell the garlic, add the tomatoes (if using a can, do not include the liquid, just the tomatoes) and start breaking them up. Add some salt, pepper, about a quarter of the basil, and all the oregano and continue to boil, breaking up the tomatoes as they melt a bit.

6. When the pasta is done, the tomato sauce should be done, too. Add the eggplant batons to the tomato sauce, along with the basil. Stir well, correct seasoning, and then add in the pasta. Pour in a bit of the pasta cooking water at a time until it’s saucy without being watery. If you cross the line to watery, boil the pasta and sauce for a few minutes to evaporate the excess water. But try not to do this, just add a bit of pasta water at a time.

7. Serve the pasta either sprinkled with the cheese or serve the cheese on the side.

Buon Appetito!

Please share your experience with pasta alla norma! And don’t forget to share this post with your friends.