Grilled Pasta alla Norma
Grilled eggplant, cherry tomatoes, and onions tossed in a freshly grated tomato sauce wiht basil and garlic, and all topped wiht a dollop of burrata and a generous dose of frehsly grated parmesan
Ingredients
- 1 lb. rigatoni (cooked according to directions when ready to serve dinner)
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp. lemon pepper perfection
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 large eggplant, cubed (leave skin on)
- 1 lb. cherry tomatoes (any color or a mix of orange, red and yellow)
- 1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 6 fresh garden tomatoes (or buy them at the store ... Roma are godo for this)
- 4 basil leaves, minced or julienned
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 ball burrata
- 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano
Instructions
- Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
- Place eggplants, onion, and cherry tomatoes in separate aluminum tins. Toss each veggie with some of the olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and lemon pepper. Set aside.
- Grill each of the veggies until the eggplant is nicely browned and has some crispy edges, but still in tact, the tomatoes are blistered and slightly blackened, and the onions are caramelized. The eggplant will cook the fastest (about 7 minutes depending upon the heat of your grill),
- The tomatoes will take bout 10 minutes or so.
- And, finally the onions may take up to 15 minutes or so. Stir each occasionally as they are cooking. This can all be done several hours ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to serve.
- Meanwhile, grate the tomatoes on a cheese grater and add to a medium-sized pot. Add the minced garlic and basil. Heat over low heat for about 5 minutes. Set aside until veggies are redy and the pasta is cooked.
- To assemble this dish, add the grilled veggies to the tomato sauce and heat until hot. Keep it hot until the pasta is cooked. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss it into the sauce. Serve on heated plates and garnish with a scoop of burrata, a generous sprinkling of Parmesan, and a basil leaf or minced basil.
Notes
If you’re not a fan of grilling veggies, or if it’s a cold and rainy day, you can always roast the veggies in the oven at 425F to get the eggplant browned with little crispy edges, the tomatoes blistered and the onions caramelized.
When we made this dish, we grilled the veggies several hours ahead of time so they’d be ready when we were to toss the pasta with the sauce. The sauce can also be made ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to heat and serve.
We were thinking of sprinkling feta on this pasta along with the grated Parmesan, when the light bulb went off and we decided that burrata would be amazing with this dish … and it really was. The combination of burrata and Parmesan is perfect for this recipe.
You can also use other types of pasta in place of rigatoni, but you want a pasta where the sauce can adhere to the noodles, like either an orecchiette pasta or a wider noodle. This