The norma pasta is a traditional, summer recipe of Sicily, an authentic treat of the island, which merges pasta, tomato, eggplants, and salted ricotta cheese. That is an easy dish with unforgettable savors. The norma pasta recipe was prepared by our grandmothers in the past centuries and many of them still delight us with the typical scent of this dish.
Usually, the norma pasta is the main first course meal in my island.
My Sicilian recipe about the norma pasta has been written to let you taste a true recipe of Sicily and retrieve the pleasure of eating even in the hardest times of our life.
Often, indeed, to enlighten our days, we have only to engage ourselves in exciting cooking experiences.
Norma Pasta Origin
If you want to know the origin of this delicious recipe, you must know that it comes from Catania.
However, there are two different versions about the origin of the norma pasta recipe.
The most truthful hypothesis is that Catania playwright Nino Martoglio, when he found himself in front of this dish, exclaimed: “That is the true Norma“. He was referring to the famous Norma, the play by Vincenzo Bellini, presented at the La Scala Theater in Milan, in 1831.
Another curiosity is that the play was starred for the first time by an actress called Giuditta Pasta.
The second hypothesis relates to a young Sicilian teacher called Norma who was compared to this recipe for her elegance and beauty.
Norma Pasta Recipe in English
There are tons of recipes in English about Norma Pasta. For this reason, I decided to provide you with a fancy Norma pasta recipe called Rolls of Norma pasta. That is the authentic Sicilian recipe with a slight variant: the eggplants are turned into rolls, instead of to be diced on the pasta.
Furthemore, here, the pasta is not short, such as the traditional rigatoni or penne, but long. In this creative norma pasta recipe, in fact, I used the popular spaghetti!
For the rest, the procedure is identical to the usual Norma pasta.
Ingredients:
- 2 Eggplants
- 1 clove of garlic
- Tomato sauce 400 ml
- Basil, salt, pepper to taste
- Pasta (spaghetti) 150 grams
- Salted ricotta cheese 50 grams.
Preparation
Cut the eggplants in slices and salt them to remove the excess of water.
Let sit for 15 minutes.
After this stage, fry two minutes on each side.
Put the Extra Virgin Sicilian oil, the clove of garlic, the tomato sauce, pepper, and salt to taste in a pan.
Cook 10 minutes. After all that, add basil to taste and the still hard spaghetti. Stirr a few minutes until the spaghetti get softened.
Then, add a handful of cooked spaghetti to the eggplant slices, along with sprinkles of salted ricotta cheese. Roll, put them in a baking tray and spread tomato sauce to taste on the rolls along with further sprinkles of salted ricotta cheese. Bake at 190 C° for 15 minutes.
Many Norma pasta recipes add parmisan and provola cheese, but the authentic and original Norma pasta recipe is with salted ricotta cheese.
Since this type of cheese is very salted, I suggest that you add a pinch of salt only when your fry the eggplants.
The rolls of norma pasta can be also be gluten-free. Instead of spaghetti, add rice to the eggplant rolls. Follow the same procedure I explained above and let me know if you enjoyed the unforgettable savour of this unique dish.
Photocredits:
LeiTV.it
Siciliainbocca in Prati
AltaCucina.co
Rosalba Mancuso is a freelance journalist born in Sicily. Passionate about her loved island and with extensive writing experience, Rosalba worked as a contributor to the main Sicily’s newspapers and as a bilingual Italian – English writer. Thanks to her skills, she also founded four websites in English. On Sicilyonweb, Rosalba tells every corner of her beloved Sicily. Furthermore, she writes this blog thanks to your help. Rosalba, in fact, earns a small commission, with no cost for you, when you book your travel or buy products through the affiliate widgets or links you find in her posts.