Pasta alla Norma
Pasta alla Norma is fried aubergine, a short tomato and basil sauce, and grated ricotta salata over short pasta. The aubergine must be fried, not roasted: that is the entire character of the dish.
Pasta alla Norma belongs to Catania, on the eastern side of Sicily under Etna, and it is named after Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma; Bellini was Catanese, and the story goes that the playwright Nino Martoglio, served the dish, exclaimed that it was a real Norma, meaning a masterpiece. From Catania it spread across the island, and you will eat it in Palermo trattorie as readily as in Catania, though Palermo's own repertoire leans towards pasta con le sarde and anelletti al forno. The ingredients are a compressed history of Sicilian agriculture: aubergine and the technique of frying it from the Arab period, tomato from the Spanish Americas, hard sheep's cheese from the interior.
The dish stands or falls on the aubergine. Roasting it gives a soft, sweet, slightly hollow vegetable; deep-frying in olive oil gives a creamy interior and a caramelised skin that dissolves into the sauce, and that richness is the whole point. Salting the slices for half an hour first draws out water so they absorb far less oil. The sauce should be short, twenty minutes at most, because it is a fresh tomato and basil sauce, not a ragù. And the finishing cheese is ricotta salata: pressed, salted, aged sheep's-milk ricotta, firm enough to grate, salty and faintly sharp. Parmigiano makes it a different, blander dish.
Ingredients
- Rigatoni, maccheroni or casarecce360 g (12.7 oz)
- Aubergines (eggplant), preferably round or violet600 g (about 2 medium)
- Tomato passata or peeled San Marzano tomatoes500 g (17.6 oz)
- Garlic2 cloves
- Fresh basil1 large bunch
- Ricotta salata, grated80 g (2.8 oz)
- Extra virgin olive oil for frying500 ml (2 cups)
- Extra virgin olive oil for the sauce3 tbsp
- Fine saltto taste, plus 2 tsp for salting the aubergine
- Sugara pinch, only if the tomatoes are sharp
Method
- 01Cut the aubergines into slices or cubes about 1.5 cm (just over half an inch) thick. Layer them in a colander with 2 tsp of fine salt and leave for 30 minutes, with a plate and a weight on top, to draw out the bitter liquid.
- 02Meanwhile make the sauce: warm 3 tbsp of olive oil in a pan with the lightly crushed garlic cloves over low heat for 2 minutes, until fragrant but not coloured, then remove the garlic.
- 03Add the passata, a good pinch of salt and a few basil stalks. Simmer uncovered over medium-low heat for 18-20 minutes, until it thickens and the oil shows red at the edges. Taste and add a pinch of sugar only if it is sharp.
- 04Rinse the aubergine briefly and dry it thoroughly between clean tea towels. Any water left on the surface will spit in the oil and make the pieces greasy.
- 05Heat the frying oil to 170-180 °C (340-355 °F). Fry the aubergine in small batches for 3-4 minutes per batch, turning, until deep golden and creamy inside. Crowding the pan drops the temperature and the aubergine soaks up oil instead of frying.
- 06Lift the pieces onto a wire rack rather than kitchen paper, so the undersides stay crisp, and season with a little salt.
- 07Cook the pasta in well-salted water and drain it a minute early, reserving a ladle of the cooking water.
- 08Toss the pasta in the tomato sauce over medium heat for 30-60 seconds, loosening with cooking water. Fold in about two thirds of the aubergine and a handful of torn basil leaves.
- 09Plate, then top each serving with the remaining aubergine, a generous grating of ricotta salata and more fresh basil. The cheese goes on at the table, off the heat, so it stays distinct rather than melting into the sauce.
What ruins it
Roasting the aubergine to save calories produces a decent pasta but not Norma: the fried texture, half custard and half caramel, is the dish. If you must reduce the oil, shallow-fry in a centimetre of it rather than baking.
Do not skip the salting step: unsalted aubergine is a sponge and will drink several times more oil. Do not fry wet slices. Do not cook the tomato for an hour: this is a bright twenty-minute sauce, and long cooking turns it into a ragù that buries the vegetable. Do not use mozzarella or Parmigiano in place of ricotta salata, whose dry salinity is what cuts the richness; if you genuinely cannot find it, a dry aged pecorino is a closer substitute than any cow's-milk cheese. Choose firm, heavy, glossy aubergines with green stems: old ones are seedy and bitter, and no amount of salting fixes that.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called pasta alla Norma?
After Norma, the 1831 opera by Vincenzo Bellini, who was born in Catania. Sicilian tradition credits the playwright Nino Martoglio with declaring the dish a real Norma, meaning a masterpiece, and the name stuck.
Can I bake the aubergine instead of frying it?
You can, at 200 °C (400 °F) for about 25 minutes with a brush of oil, and it makes a good pasta. It is not Norma: baked aubergine is drier and sweeter, and the dish loses the creamy richness that frying in olive oil creates.
What is ricotta salata and what can replace it?
It is sheep's-milk ricotta that has been salted, pressed and aged for a few months until firm enough to grate: salty, milky and faintly sharp. The closest substitutes are a dry aged pecorino or a Greek dry myzithra; feta is too wet and too tangy.
Should I peel the aubergines?
No. The skin holds the pieces together during frying and adds bitterness that balances the tomato. Some Catania cooks peel them in stripes if the aubergines are large and the skin is thick.