Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Baked Macaroni with Eggplant

Another recipe from La Cucina, The Regional Cooking of Italy. Timballo Di Maccheroni 1, Baked Macaroni with Eggplant. This recipe comes from Sicily.
Unfortunately the camera is in hiding... I think either Kramer or Archie might know its whereabouts. But back to dinner.
This was a delicious dinner. For being a baked macaroni dish it was very light. It used the sauce I had made on Sunday and put on the pizza. This dish will reappear in the blog at sometime. I cut the recipe in half but this is the recipe as it appears in the book. The recipe calls for lardo. I did not use lardo so this meal was meatless. Perfect for Lent.

Ingredients
3 eggplants, cut in thin lengthwise strips
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp lardo, minced
1 garlic clove, crushed
3/4 lb. fresh plum tomatoes, chopped and seeded (I used canned San Marzano tomatoes)
3/4 lb. macaroni rigati
2oz. caciocavallo, sliced
tbsp. unsalted butter
Salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Grease a baking dish. Put the eggplant slices in a colander, sprinkle with salt, and leave for 30 minutes to make them lose their bitter juice.
Heat 1/4 inch of olive oil in a pan. Rinse and dry the eggplant slices and fry them; set aside.
In a saucepan heat the lardo and 2 tablespoons olive oil and sauté the onion and garlic; add the tomatoes and season with salt; cover and cook at low heat.
Cook the macaroni in salted boiling water; drain when al dente.
In the baking dish arrange alternating layers of macaroni, tomato sauce, eggplant, and caciocavallo, continuing the layers until no ingredients are left. Place pats of butter across the surface and bake for 10 minutes.
Unmold onto a serving dish and cut in wedges to serve.

1 comment:

Pam said...

Oh, I will be trying this! I love eggplant and macaroni and have never thought about combining the two of them. Yum!