Just when you thought it was safe to start reading my blog again, I decided to jump out from behind the door and yell, “SICILY!!!!!!” in your face.  Ha!  And you thought that I’d finished waxing lyrical about that wonderful island! 🙂 I wanted to share another recipe with you that is a staple there: pasta alla Norma.  It’s very simple, but amazingly flavourful, especially if you can get your mitts on a piece of hard ricotta cheese (ricotta salata): which was one of the things I stuffed into my bursting-at-the-seams bag when we came home.  Sadly, it’s all gone now, so I can only dream about what it was like to eat it, until the next time we go back to Sicily.  Oh yes, there will be a “next time”….there just HAS to be if there is any justice in the world!!

Now, please don’t get too upset that I’m dangling this recipe for pasta alla Norma in front of you, when I well know  that ricotta salata is not easy to find outside of Italy.  I’m not meaning to tempt you and then slap you…..really!!  If you manage to sniff out a block of it, grab it immediately and don’t let any of the other shoppers convince you that they saw it first! Smuggle it home and treat it with tender-loving care.  It will last for a few weeks in the fridge if it’s wrapped in a paper towel (so I found out!). The word ricotta means “twice cooked” as it made from whey which is a by-product of  making other cheeses (cooking number 1), which is then heated again after a fermentation process (cooking number 2).  The ricotta salata is cooked YET again in the oven to make it hard…..maybe it should be called trecotta?!  Now, if you want to get all energetic on me and make it from scratch, it’s apparently pretty easy.  It’s something I haven’t tried yet, but I’d be interested to hear from any of you who have done it.  You can try this recipe here from the lovely cooking blog:  101 cookbooks.

Now, the name Norma….you may be asking, who the heck is she anyway??!! Well, it’s not a “she” but an opera written way back by a guy called Vincenzo Bellini.  The story is the 1800’s equivalent of a Mills and Boon, with the exception in the end that the….(SPOILER ALERT!!!!)….heroine gives her kids away to stop herself from killing them and then gets burnt in a pyre with her lover so that she can be with him for eternity.  Uplifting story, no? So, you ask, “why is a dish of pasta called after an opera?”.  That is an excellent question that I have no real answer for except to say that the person in Catania, Sicily, who was supposed to have invented this dish must’ve adored this opera, or it actually has nothing to do with the opera and the inventor’s mother or grandmother was called Norma.

Even without the ricotta, pasta alla Norma is a wonderful plate full of the tastes of Summer.  It’s simple to make, and very satisfying to eat  And, the most important thing of all (at least for me): MY KIDS EAT IT!   That means they eat lots of aubergine, which may help the bit of their brain grow to allow them to look for things they’ve lost. Right now, they stare at the thing they’re searching for and yell, “But Mamma, I can’t find it!!!”. We’ll see if that changes if I feed them more aubergine.

To find out how to cook pasta like an Italian does, check out my handy guide.

By Lisa Watson

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Good ingredients are essential to elevate this pasta dish to the "WOW!!" category!

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 400 g - there is no set pasta for this dish. Be imaginative! Pasta
• 1 medium-sized Aubergines
• 500 ml 2 cups Tomato puree
• to taste Hard ricotta
• a few fresh leaves Basil

Instructions

• 30 minutes before cooking the pasta: chop the aubergine into cubes, put it in a colander placed in a bowl, and sprinkle it with large salt.  Put a plate on top and something heavy on top of that and then leave it for 30 minutes.  this really makes a difference to the oil uptake of the aubergine.  It cooks much better after this!
• Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.  I like to use fusilli or penne rigate for this sauce, but the choice is yours.
• Rinse the aubergine and blot it dry with paper towels.
• In a pan, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil.  Add the chopped aubergine and saute it, stirring often, until it browns on all sides.
• In another pan, heat a little olive oil. Add the tomato puree and let it simmer for 5 minutes.  If you want to really make it from scratch, de-seed and peel 4-5 large tomatoes.  Chop them and simmer them for 20 minutes. You can also put a whole clove of garlic in the oil, if you like, to add flavour (and then take it out at the end).
• Add the cooked aubergine to the tomato. Salt to taste, but be careful as the aubergine has already absorbed some salt.
• Drain the pasta and add the sauce to it.  Tear up a few basil leaves and sprinkle them on top.
• Grate hard ricotta over the top of the pasta.
• Now take a mouthful and be surprised at how such a simple thing can taste SOOO good!!!

All the good foods in Sicily

Ahhhhhh…..Sicily, I miss you already, and I’ve only been home a day.  The food, the people, the food, the scenery, the food……..oh, and did I mention that the food was good?! I was amazed to find all sorts of specialties that I’d never even heard of, and couldn’t get enough of.  I came back with my hand-luggage crammed with wild oregano, giant cheeses, dried chilies (peperoncini), pistachios, and capers until my poor bag groaned and puffed itself up so much that I was worried that it might explode in protest in a cloud of peperoncino powder while I was going through security at the airport. (And you can imagine the chaos that would’ve caused if you’ve ever put your finger on your tongue or eye after touching chilies…..)

Discover delicious and versatile Caponata

While I was there, I found the super-hero of dishes: is it an aperitif? Is it a main dish? Is it a side?  Or, is it a pasta sauce? It’s everything!  You can’t beat that….maybe if you add enough sugar, or some whipped cream, it could also become a strange nouvelle cusine dessert. This plate-of-all-trades is called Caponata. It’s a fabulous mixture of aubergine (eggplant), capsicum, onions, olives, and capers that can be nearly any part of a menu you want it to be. You can eat caponata hot, tepid or cold. You can add more of one ingredient and less of others, depending on your tastes.  Caponata‘s so forgiving that it sounds like the perfect partner to spend your life with!

Everything else you need to know about making Caponata

While staying in a wonderful agriturismo called Sant’Elia near Siracusa, Maria, the mother of the owner, Cristina told us how to make caponata.  As soon as we arrived home I feverishly rushed to the supermarket and bought everything I needed.  She vows and declares that you should only make it with Sicilian olives, but unfortunately, they’re hard to come by here, so I threw in some local green olives.  I can attest that it still tasted marvelous!

The only downside with making caponata is that you need to cook everything separately, so it takes a little time, but it’s worth it in the end.  So, here are the quantities I used for the recipe. You can vary the ingredients, depending on what you have in the fridge, or if you hate celery. 🙂  The constants are aubergines, olives, pine-nuts, capers and red-wine vinegar.  The rest is up to you!

Travel photo of the week

This photo was taken in Aci Trezza, on the east coast of Sicily.  This small coastal town is famous for the three pointed sea-stacks sitting just offshore from the beach. These rocks were meant to have been thrown by the cyclops, Polythemus, when he was trying sink the boats of Ulysses as he was sailing away.  Why did the giant do this?  Well, he was in a rage as Ulysses had purposefully blinded him in his single eye after getting him drunk.  All for a good reason though.  Ulysses was meant to be Polythemus’s dinner. Ulysses and his boats got away, but the rocks still stand there as a testament to the bad aim of Polythemus.

By Lisa Watson

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Caponata from Sicily

Course Appetizer, buffet, first course, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Ingredients

• 800 g Aubergines approximately 3 large
• 3 Capsicum red and/or yellow
• 3 Tbsp Capers
• 500 g Tomatoes approximately 3 large
• 2 Onions
• 60 g Pinenuts 1/3 cup
• 200 g Black or Green pitted olives 1 1/3 cups - good quality a must!
• 250 g Celery 1 bunch
• 250 ml Red wine vinegar 1 cup
• 50 g Sugar 3 Tbsp
• Large grained salt

Instructions

• Chop the aubergine into medium-size cubes, then sprinkle it with 3-4 Tbsp of large salt,  Mix together, then place in a sieve.  Place the sieve in a bowl or in the sink.  Put a plate on top of the aubergine chunks and then something heavy on top of the plate.  Leave it to release its water for about 2 hours.  This allows the aubergines to brown well and not suck up as much oil.
• Roast the capsicums in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees C (350F).  Take them out and put them in a paper bag to allow the skins to be peeled off easily.  Now, this is what I did as I like them very cooked, but you can also cut them into slices raw and cook them with the aubergines in one of the later steps if you prefer.
• Peel the tomatoes and chop them into chunks. If the capers are packed in salt, rinse them.
• Boil the celery for 3 minutes, then saute it in olive oil for 5 minutes.  Pour it into a sieve and let the oil drain off while cooking everything else to make the caponata a little lighter.
• Slice the onions into medium/fine slices, then saute them in a separate pan at a low heat from 15 minutes, stirring often. Then should become translucent, but not browned.
• Add the capers, pine-nuts and olives and stir.
• Add the tomatoes, and cook uncovered on a low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Rinse the aubergine chunks and pat them dry.  Fry them in another pan until they are browned. (If using raw capsicum, this is the time to cook them).
• Add everything together and mix.
• Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar and pour it over the mixture.  Stir then leave it on the heat for 3 or 4 minutes until the vinegar smell has gone.

Notes

If you have some fresh basil, sprinkle some leaves over the top.  The dish generally doesn't need salting because of the capers and aubergines that have been sitting in salt.

Caponata will keep in the fridge for at least 5 days.

It is best eaten at room temperature.