An unpromising name, for us Brits at least, calling to mind as it does a woman known more for her peas than her pasta, but one that’s utterly right for this time of year, when it’s finally safe to put away the potatoes and cast out the kale in favour of darkly glossy aubergines and plump red tomatoes. A Sicilian speciality that’s disappointingly said to have been inspired by the beauty of the Bellini opera of the same name, rather than the Tory politician’s wife, norma packs a serious summery punch, while also having enough heft to warm up the most unseasonably dreary of evenings. In short, you need this for dinner tonight.
Aubergines
It is impossible to cook aubergines without wading into the debate on the merits of salting them “to sweat out any bitter juices”, as Lucio Galletto writes in the Art of Pasta, and ruefully reflecting that you would be lucky to find a modern variety with any bitterness left to remove. Others claim it stops them soaking up so much oil during cooking, which I’ve never found to be true either, but it does help to season this rather bland vegetable from the inside out, so it is a good idea, if time permits. Half an hour is quite sufficient but even 10 minutes, while you prep the rest of the ingredients, is better than nothing.
Galletto, and Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray in the River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook, thinly slice the aubergine, which looks prettier than the more common diced version, but proves less practical to eat; Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy’s 2cm cubes in the Geometry of Pasta are far easier to scoop up with a forkful of noodles than these rounds, or indeed Marcella Hazan’s larger chunks. She peels her aubergine before use, which seems a shame, as its skin is such a beautiful colour, while Rogers and Gray call for the pale, round Italian variety which yields beautiful big rounds, but tastes, as far as I can tell, very similar to its longer cousin; so use whatever looks best when buying.
Heretically, I am going to bake my aubergines, rather than frying them as Galletto and Hazan recommend, or even deep-frying like Rogers and Gray and Hildebrand and Kenedy; traditional it may be, but it does make things extremely oily. Not that I’m averse to a spot of oil, you understand (one of the reasons that many things taste much better in Italian restaurants is, I suspect, the amount of oil and salt they fling in), but the caramelised sweetness of the baked version in chef Sara Jenkins’s recipe in Saveur magazine swings it for me. Sacrifice me to your Gaulish gods if you must, conservative cooks, but please, give it a try first.
Tomatoes
Aubergines may be the billboard star, but tomatoes hold this dish together. Galletto, Hazan and Jenkins use tinned (Italian San Marzano in the last case), Rogers and Gray call for the fresh sort, and the Geometry of Pasta uses both.
At this time of year, it seems a shame not to take advantage of the widespread availability of tomatoes that actually taste of tomatoes, but I find the River Cafe recipe thinner and sharper than the rest, perhaps also thanks to the fact that it only warms the tomatoes through, rather than cooking them into a sauce. It is the one I would choose on a baking Sicilian summer’s day, fresh and fruity and halfway to a pasta salad (a quality accentuated by a sprinkling of red-wine vinegar). However, without access to their superb suppliers, I wouldn’t like to rely on fresh tomatoes alone. The sweetness of tinned is the perfect foil to the acidity of even the ripest fresh British kind, so I will be going down the Hildebrand and Kenedy route and using a combination of the two.
Hazan drains her tinned tomatoes of their juice before use. I’m sceptical: it seems like a waste, though it does make a fine bloody mary for the cook. Actually, a thicker sauce, like the River Cafe one, works better here than Jenkins’s soupier version.
Flavourings
Many of the dishes – Hazan’s and Hildebrand and Kenedy’s in particular – are very onion-heavy; the flavour dominates the sauce. Onion is, of course, delicious with tomatoes and aubergines, but it detracts from the freshness of the other flavours in a way that the River Cafe’s sharper garlic does not.
Jenkins and Hildebrand and Kenedy also add a very Sicilian pinch of chilli which is a great optional extra, while basil is a must (though I’ve seen a suggestion online that mint makes a good substitute).
Pasta
Unusually, there seems to be little consensus on the best shape to use for norma: Galletto calls for spaghetti, Jenkins bucatini, River Cafe smooth penne lisce, the Geometry of Pasta maccheroncini and Hazan ruote di carro or cartwheels, although she concedes that fusilli, rigatoni or even “plain old spaghetti” are also good. The art of matching pasta to sauce is a mysterious one: the sauce slips off, or through, the slippery penne and bucatini, while the maccheroncini feel too small for the aubergine chunks. Spaghetti works well, but the cartwheels do the best job of trapping Hazan’s thicker, jammier sauce, though I suspect twists or other larger round shapes would be equally successful.
Cheese
As with carbonara, cheese is more than mere seasoning here: you can’t have norma without it. Properly speaking, it ought to be ricotta salata, a hard, salty, aged version of the soft, creamy fresh stuff found in tubs next to the mascarpone. Any good cheesemongers or Italian grocers should have it, or it is easily found online and lasts for ages.
It is not the only option: Galletto prefers parmesan. which he feels gives the dish “more harmony, because the ricotta can sometimes be too salty and you can’t control that”, adding fresh ricotta as a garnish, while Hazan specifies pecorino romano, which I think of as a halfway house between parmesan and salted ricotta, being tangier and sharper than the former, but cheesier and nuttier than the latter, and fresh ricotta.
Both have their merits (though I am not sure anyone should add 50g of cheese per person to a dish, as Galletto suggests; even my greediest testers are slightly overfaced by its outrageous cheesiness, though they bravely polish off a large bowl regardless). Neither goes as well with the creamy, caramelised aubergine and rich tomato as the simply salty ricotta. Get hold of some if you can.
Pasta alla norma
(Serves 2, easily multiplied)
1 large aubergine, cut into 2cm dice
Salt
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 tomatoes (about a tin), drained and roughly chopped or 6 ripe plum or similarly sized tomatoes
25g basil
150g-200g ruote di carro/cartwheels, fusilli or spaghetti, depending on your hunger
2 tbsp grated ricotta salata
Put the diced aubergine in a colander in the sink and sprinkle with salt. Leave to sit for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 230C.
Rinse the aubergine in cold water, pat dry with kitchen towel and toss in a bowl with half the oil,then bake, well spread out, for about 15-20 minutes until caramelised, turning occasionally to make sure the pieces don’t dry out.
Meanwhile, heat the other half of the oil in a wide pan over a medium heat and add the garlic. Saute for a couple of minutes, then add the tomatoes and half the basil and bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat and cook slowly for about 20 to 30 minutes until thickened (the exact time will depend on your tomatoes).
Once the sauce is almost ready, cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water to your liking. Add the aubergine to the sauce and discard the basil. Drain the pasta and toss in the sauce, then divide between plates and sprinkle with the ricotta and the remaining basil leaves, roughly torn over the top. It’s best allowed to cool slightly before eating.
Norma – the summeriest of pasta dishes … or do you have another warm-weather favourite? Am I a heretic for baking the aubergines, or using tinned tomatoes, and if not, which time-honoured culinary traditions are you happy to tweak in the name of improvement?
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