Rigatoni with Sweet Tomatoes, Eggplant, and Mozzarella

Before we left Australia to come to the UK, we sold pretty much all of our belongings. Bizarrely, one of the things I was most sad to get rid of was all my old cooking magazines. I had a couple of years of Delicious and Super Food Ideas and while I couldn't justify keeping them, it was a bit sad to see them go. That became more critical when it appeared that one of the magazines I sold contained a Jamie Oliver pasta recipe that Kyle loved and was nowhere to be found on the internet.

From memory, we recalled the recipe included aubergine, mozzarella stirred through at the end so it just melts, tinned tomato and chilli. Every so often, I did a browse around the internet to try and find the recipe. It is the internet - everything is on there! Finally, my persistence paid off and I found the recipe on some pregnancy forum! It was slightly different to how we remembered, but it had been a while.

We were so excited and looked forward to the two year plus reunion with this dish. And it was disappointing. I mean, not bad but kinda bland. What was going on?

Jamie Oliver's language is always quite distinctive and the writer of the forum post had used a sentence that reminded me of how Jamie writes, so I decided to google that:

The mozzarella should be just about to melt and a bit stringy at this point cooked by the heat of the sauce.

Bingo! This post came up first (along with three others) and it turns out the recipe is from Jamie's Dinners (not that secret after all!) and the first recipe missed out the vital ingredient - chilli!

The lengths we go to to find a recipe! We haven't yet, but we will give this another try.

Rigatoni with Sweet Tomatoes, Eggplant and Mozzarella
by Jamie Oliver from Jamie’s Dinners
Serves 4

This is a dish I’ve had many times in Italy, on the Amalfi coast. It’s one of those dishes that tastes like home — it’s comfort food, and it makes you feel good. The interesting thing about it is that the cow’s-milk mozzarella is torn up and thrown in at the last minute so that when you dig your spoon in you get melted, stringy bits of it — a real joy to eat. You can eat this as soon as it’s made, or you can put it all into a baking pan with a little cheese grated on top and reheat it as a baked pasta dish the next day, if you wish.

Ingredients
1 firm ripe pink, black, or white eggplant
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
Two 14-ounce cans good-quality plum tomatoes
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 fresh or dried chilies, chopped or crumbled, optional
Bunch fresh basil, leaves ripped and stalks sliced
4 tablespoons heavy cream
1 pound rigatoni or penne
7 ounces cow’s-milk mozzarella
1 piece Parmesan cheese, for grating

Method
1. Remove both ends of the eggplant and slice it into 1/2 inch slices, then slice these across and finely dice into 1/2 inch cubes. Some people prefer to season their eggplant with salt and let it sit for a while in a colander to draw out the bitterness, but I don’t really do this unless I’m dealing with a seedy, bitter eggplant. This dish is really best made using a firm silky one.

2. Now, put a large saucepan on the heat and drizzle in 4 to 5 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil. When it’s hot, add the cubes of eggplant, and as soon as they hit the pan stir them around with a spoon so they are delicately coated with the oil and not soaked on one side only. Cook for about 7 or 8 minutes on a medium heat.

3. Then add the garlic and onion. When they have a little color, add the canned tomatoes and the balsamic vinegar. Stir around and season carefully with salt and pepper. At this point, if you wanted to give the dish a little heat you could add some chopped fresh or crumbled dried chilli, but that’s up to you. Add the basil stalks, and simmer the sauce nice and gently for around 15 minutes, then add the cream.

4. While the sauce is simmering, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the pasta, cook according to the package instructions until it is soft but still holding its shape, then drain it, saving a little of the cooking water. I like to put the pasta back into the pot it was cooked in with a tiny bit of the cooking water and a drizzle of olive oil and move it around so it becomes almost dressed with the water and oil.

5. At this point add the lovely tomato sauce to the pasta. By now the eggplant will have cooked into a creamy tomatoey pulp, which is just yum yum yum! Season carefully to taste with salt and pepper. When all my guests are sitting round the table, I take the pan to the table, tear up the mozzarella and the fresh basil, and fold these in nicely for 30 seconds. Then very quickly serve into bowls. By the time your guests start to eat, the mozzarella will have started to melt and will be stringy and gorgeous and really milky-tasting. Just lovely with the tomatoes and eggplant. Serve at the table with a block of Parmesan cheese and a grater so that everyone can help themselves.