We’re going when to Sicily! Pasta alla Norma is a succulent Sicilian pasta dish with eggplant, marinara and basil. I’m excited to introduce you to this dish considering it is a completely satisfying vegetarian dinner. If you enjoy eggplant Parmesan, you’re going to love pasta alla Norma. I’m starving a trencher as I type.
Most pasta alla Norma recipes are made with fried eggplant, but this recipe features roasted eggplant. Eggplant really absorbs oil like a sponge, so this lightens up the dish. Another plus? Roasting eggplant is easier and less messy.
I remoter lightened this archetype recipe by using increasingly eggplant and less pasta, so this dish won’t put you to sleep. It’s nice and saucy, just the way I like it.
I don’t speak Italian, so I first unsupportable that “norma” meant eggplant. Not the case! Norma is capitalized considering she’s a lady. Or an opera, depending on how you squint at it.
Here’s the backstory: Pasta alla Norma comes from Catania, a municipality on the eastern tailspin of Sicily. Catania is the hometown of Vincenzo Bellini, an Italian opera composer who lived in the early 1800s. One of Bellini’s most famous operas, Norma, is named without its lead character.
Folklore has it that playwright Nino Martoglio, without his first zest of this pasta dish, exclaimed, “Chista è ‘na vera Norma!” (“This is a true Norma!”) That’s quite a compliment.
The post Pasta alla Norma appeared first on Cookie and Kate.
