When you walk into Pomodori Italian Eatery, located in the heart of Hilton Head Island, the first thing you see is a large chalkboard with a map of Italy and, in big letters pointing to Sicily, the word "ME!"
Chef Amanda Russ Cifaldi, born and raised in a large Sicilian-American family, has cooking in her blood. So when she moved to Calabria, Italy to enhance her culinary education, the flavors and ingredients of Southern Italian cuisine were all too familiar to her.
Pomodori, which of course means tomatoes in Italian, is a fitting name for her restaurant. "Who doesn't love a freshly picked tomato from the vine?" she says. Here, she shares a recipe that pays homage to her Sicilian roots: Pasta alla Norma, a simple yet incredibly delicious dish made with roasted eggplant and cherry tomatoes tossed in rigatoni and a fresh crushed San Marzano tomato sauce, then topped with ricotta salata and fresh basil.
Pasta alla Norma
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
One medium to large eggplant, firm and glossy
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 28 oz. cans whole San Marzano tomatoes, broken up by hand
1 medium red onion, peeled and thickly sliced
1 head of garlic, peeled and sliced
Pinch of crushed red pepper, or to taste
1 lb. rigatoni or fusilli pasta
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Fresh basil, as much as you’d like
1 small wedge ricotta salata
Directions
1. Place a large pot of water to boil and salt heavily. It should taste almost exactly like the sea to make sure it properly seasoned the pasta.
2. Turn your oven to 400°F.
3. Coat the bottom of a large saucepan with extra-virgin olive oil. Add the onion and a healthy pinch of kosher salt to the pot and sauté over medium low heat until translucent and soft. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper and sauté another two minutes until soft and translucent. Be careful to keep your flame low; if you brown the onions or the garlic your sauce will taste bitter instead of fresh.
4. When all of the vegetables are soft add your broken up tomatoes and stir. Cook until the tomatoes no longer taste tart and raw, about 45 minutes.
You will start to see a foam develop on the top of the tomatoes. This is a signal that you are about halfway there. When the foam dissipates and a deep red paste develops on the sides of the pot you’re finished.
5. While the sauce is cooking, trim the ends of the eggplant with a vegetable peeler and peel alternating stripes vertically down the eggplant. Slice the eggplant vertically down the center and cut into 1-inch planks. Then turn the planks sideways in a stack and cut them long ways into half inch strips. Now cut across those strips into half inch cubes. Scatter these on a sheet pan with the pint of cherry tomatoes, a good glug of extra-virgin olive oil, and a pinch of kosher salt. Mix all of them together on the sheet pan and place in a 400°F oven for 12 minutes.
6. When the tomatoes are blistered and the eggplant has given up most of its water, remove from the oven and place in the sauce, sautéing lightly to allow the eggplant to absorb the flavor of the sauce.
7. Add your pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente according to the package. Strain and remove one cup of the pasta cooking liquid and taste for saltiness. If it is too salty discard 2/3 of it and add regular water in for the other part. The starch from the pasta liquid will add a creaminess to the sauce and allow the sauce to cling to the pasta better.
8. Add the pasta and the pasta water into the pot with the sauce and sauté everything together for 2 to 5 minutes to allow the pasta to absorb the sauce. Taste for seasoning. You don’t want it to be too salty at this point because you will add the ricotta salata which is a salted cheese.
9. Plate the pasta into four large, deep bowls and top with finely grated ricotta salata and fresh, torn basil.
Serve with crusty Italian bread, crushed red pepper, and a delicious summer white wine!