Penne with mozzarella eggplant tomato sauce
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eggplant tomato sauce with fresh melted mozzarella
Another quick and fun sauce to make with great flavors coming from the garlic, eggplant and mozzarella.
Ingredients for 4
- 1 eggplant
- 2 14oz cans of ground peeled tomatoes (or prepare your own)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 3-4 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 ball or 3/4 cup of fresh mozzarella di bufala cheese
- 4-5 fresh basil leaves
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Parmesan cheese
- Salt and ground pepper for seasoning
- 400 grams of Penne pasta
how to prepare, taken from the video
First start by adding a few table spoons of olive oil to a large frying pan on the stove. Then add in a couple cloves of garlic. I usually split them open by hitting them with the flat side of my knife.
Let that simmer on a low heat and begin preparing the eggplant.
After washing off the eggplant cut it into small cubes. I’m using one eggplant for about 4 people.
Use more if your cooking for 6 to 8 people, as well as adjusting the tomato sauce.
Now that the garlic is starting to brown take it out, and add in the eggplant. Lower the heat just a little and stir everything around making sure to coat all the pieces with the ‘garlicy’ oil.
After all the eggplant are covered with oil add in a little salt
keep stirring the eggplant until they gradually start to brown and become soft, lower the flame a bit so they don’t burn.
Once the eggplant is browned and soft, add in the ground peeled tomatoes (sauce), remember you can always use fresh tomatoes or whole canned tomatoes to achieve more texture if that’s your preference. (In the mestolando video Penne alle olive nere at the 3 minute marker I show how to prepare your own tomatoes.)
While thats simmering boil some water for the penne pasta.
When the water is boiling add in penne pasta and check the sauce for seasoning. i ended up adding a little salt.
After 10 minutes of simmering on low heat the sauce is cooked, not too watery and the eggplant nice and soft. It may take less than 10 minutes so good to keep an eye on it.
Next drain the penne pasta.
Now it’s time to prepare the fresh mozzarella di bufula cheese, do this by cutting it up into pieces. If you can’t find this kind of mozzarella use the best mozzarella you can find.
After that combine the mozzarella cheese with the sauce and penne pasta.
Put the pan on a low heat and stir the penne pasta, sauce and mozzarella together, the mozzarella should be melting some.
Then cut up some fresh basil and add it to the sauce.
Lastly right before serving, season it with some ground black pepper and a little parmesan cheese.
It’s ready to serve.
it's about italian food
and sharing how we make it from our kitchen in florence, italy. we enjoy cooking and learning new recipes and hope you will too. buon appetito, and thanks for stopping by. more
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to the tooth, or so your teeth can feel it. ‘dente’ means tooth in italian and ‘al’ means ‘too’ in this case. when eating spaghetti if the center is slightly hard the teeth will feel it.
tomatoes and history
History and distribution of tomatoes from wikipedia. In italy it reads “Eventually the peasant classes discovered that it could be eaten when more desirable food was scarce”. More desirable foods must of been meat dishes.
season to taste
Taste is important, following recommendations of a recipe are good but not always the way you may like it. Look over the ingredients to see which are going to add more seasoning than others, like bacon or pancetta which will add a saltly flavor when cooked.
farm fresh
If you live in a city or town that has local farmstands or a store that sells locally grown produce it’s worth the extra trip. some of the best produce we’ve been lucky to cook with has come from some of these small growers and sellers.
