I am not a big eggplant fan, so my main concern was to perfect the flavor of the eggplant in this dish. My first time trying it, I didn’t remove any of the skin and didn’t bother to salt the eggplant to draw out the water prior to cooking. Big mistake. The eggplant skin was inedible, as you couldn’t even chew through it. It really ruined the dish, but I was set on getting it right the next time. The original recipe calls for salting the eggplant and letting it drain for about two hours. That seemed way too long for me to wait, as I am super impatient when hungry, so I waited just about an hour and thought that should be good enough. I also removed most of the eggplant skin prior to cutting into cubes. I cooked this with a can of polpa tomato sauce by Mutti, as I was in a rush and didn’t want to make my own sauce. It turned out so much better, but I knew the flavor still wasn’t the best it could be.
On my third try I decided to salt the eggplant and let it drain for an hour and a half and then let it sit on a kitchen towel to dry out. I also squeezed some of the excess water out before adding to the sauce. This time, I decided to make my own homemade sauce using roma tomatoes, since I had to wait for the eggplant to drain anyway. I got a vegetable mill so that I wouldn’t get any of the tomato skins or garlic and basil into the final sauce. To thicken the sauce, I decided I wanted to cook the pasta somewhat like a risotto, where I would add the pasta into the sauce pan and cook by adding small amounts of the pasta water at a time. BINGO! This simple step elevated the flavor of the sauce and also thickened it, while allowing the pasta to absorb the flavor of the sauce.
If you try this recipe, I recommend taking the time to allow the salt to extract the water from the eggplant and making your own homemade tomato sauce for the best flavor. Rushing through it will still be good, but not the best it could be! Also, if you can get it, use the ricotta salata, since this is the traditional Sicilian cheese to top off the dish. If you can’t find this cheese anywhere, try it with parmigiano-regiano or pecorino-romano cheese. Follow along with the print recipe listed below or watch as I prepare this recipe step by step in the following video.
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