Pasta with Baby Eggplants - a delicious Sicilian pasta sauce made with baby eggplant, garlic, Pecorino Romano and mint.
Course
Main
Cuisine
Italian
Prep Time15minutes
Cook Time45minutes
Total Time1hour
Servings6
AuthorManuela Zangara
Ingredients
480gms– 1 lb. short pasta
700gms– 1 ½ lbs. baby eggplants
4garlic cloves
Mint leaves
60gms– 2 oz. Pecorino Romanochopped
3tbspextra virgin olive oil
1 ½lt. – 6 cups tomato puree
Salt and pepper to taste
4tbspvegetable oil
Pecorino Romanofinely grated to serve
Instructions
Wash and trim the baby eggplants and keep aside.
Chop 2 of the garlic cloves and mix some salt and pepper in a bowl.
Cut some slits on the sides of the baby eggplants and fill them with some of the chopped garlic, salt and pepper mixture, and mint leaves. Do that for all the eggplants.
Halve the remaining garlic and sauté it in a pot with the extra virgin olive oil. Add the tomato puree, mix and bring to a boil.
Heat up the vegetable oil in a frying pan and brown the eggplants in it on all sides.
Add the fried eggplants to the tomato sauce. Season with salt to taste, cover, and let the sauce cook for 30 minutes or until it thickens.
Cook the pasta following the steps on How to cook pasta “al dente” in the Techniques page of this site. Drain it and top with the tomato sauce and eggplants. Mix well.
Serve immediately with a generous amount of finely grated Pecorino Romano on the top.