Antonia’s Pasta Alle Melenzana (Eggplant Pasta) with Ina Garten | Barefoot Contessa | Food Network

Antonia shares her family recipe for divine eggplant pasta, a truly classic Italian comfort food.
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Antonia’s Pasta Alle Melenzana (Eggplant Pasta)
RECIPE COURTESY OF ANTONIA BELLANCA
Level: Intermediate
Total: 57 min
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 27 min
Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

Olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 large Vidalia onion, chopped
3 large eggplants, chopped (5 cups)
3 whole garlic cloves, peeled
Leaves from 10 to12 sprigs of fresh basil
Kosher salt
10 to 15 plum tomatoes
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of sugar
1 1/2 pounds dry fettuccine
1/2 pound packaged mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1.1 pounds fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Heat 1/2 cup of oil and the butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and eggplant and cook gently over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until tender. It may be necessary to add more oil as the eggplant soaks the oil up quickly. Towards the end of cooking time, add the whole garlic cloves and half of the basil leaves.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the tomatoes for 4 to 5 minutes until the skin splits and the tomatoes are softened. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon and place them in a mesh colander set over a large bowl. Reserve the cooking liquid.

When they are cool enough to handle, core the tomatoes and peel off the skin. Using clean hands, squish the tomatoes, pushing the pulp through the sieve into the bowl underneath. At first you will have a watery liquid. Add the tomato liquid to the eggplant and then continue to push the tomato pulp through the sieve, until you have only seeds and hard pulp pieces left. Finally, add the rest of the pulpy liquid to the eggplants and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the sugar and continue to cook for 10 more minutes, until thickened.

In the meantime, bring the reserved cooking liquid back to a boil, add additional salt, and cook the fettuccine according to directions on the package. Drain well.

To serve, spoon a third of the eggplant into a bowl and set aside. Toss the pasta in the saute pan with the remaining eggplant and add the packaged mozzarella. Place the mixture in a large serving bowl and top with the reserved eggplant, the fresh mozzarella and the Parmesan. Garnish with the remaining basil leaves and serve hot.

A viewer or guest of the show, who may not be a professional cook, provided this recipe. It has not been tested for home use.
2011, Antonia Bellanca, All Rights Reserved

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Antonia’s Pasta Alle Melenzana (Eggplant Pasta) with Ina Garten | Barefoot Contessa | Food Network

my friend Antonio is sharing her family
recipe for divine eggplant pasta that’s
really classic comfort food so you’re
going to show me how to do it I am so
we’re starting with we’re dicing up our
onions and our eggplant and so you have
one onion I have one big onion all right
we are going to put about a half a cup
of olive oil
in and then we’re going to put a teeny
bit of butter just cuz I always think
that rounds out the onion and the sauté
and all that
[Music]
stuff
all right now we’re going to put some
eggplant in you
can so this is like a five cups of
eggplant is this too
much this going to all fit in yeah I
think that’s good so we’re going to let
that cook down an Ton’s a very natural
cook so how long does this cook for
about 15 minutes while we’re getting the
tomatoes blanched and ready excellent
got work in tandem fabulous so next
Tomatoes there’s a million ways to
blanch a tomato uh-oh and we’re going to
do the simplest way these are pretty big
so we’re not going to put all of these
in we’ll leave we’re going to make about
about 12 that’s good perfect she can’t
help herself lucky and how long does
those blanch for uh we want to bring it
back up to a boil in just like a couple
of minutes okay
great here we go okay you know we’re
going to do this all in two pans we’re
going to actually um cook the pasta in
the same pan that we blanched the
tomatoes in that’s a good idea it’s just
you know makes it easier for the clean
up and it also just gives a little bit
of an earthy feeling to the pasta water
it’s a lot of tomatoes how much pasta
are we making we’re making a pound and a
half okay it looks like the eggplant is
boiling down nicely you know what we’re
going to do now we’re going to put in a
couple of whole cloves of garlic okay
we’ll put a few leaves of the uh the
basil into put some basil Bas leav no
stems oh I like I like this cook Italian
cooking yeah yeah yeah just throw
everything in look at how pretty that is
okay next we’re going to peel the
tomatoes exactly okay good we’re going
to core them and peel them and while I’m
doing this you can be chopping up that
cheese okay what’s next I am squishing
the tomatoes which is something I would
do want get anywhere near but this is
something I would do even if they were
in the can you don’t want giant chunks
of tomato this is one messy
job but it is the way to get them the
best now the first thing that happens
even when you have a can of tomatoes is
there’s liquid and what I like to do is
get the liquid right in oh that’s great
so it makes a really good sauce yeah it
makes a good sauce get and now you can
put some salt to taste and pepper okay
and a little Pinch of Sugar little Pinch
of Sugar I have idea I have no idea it’s
just my grandmother did it then we’re
doing it too oh God this smells so good
I know it took a little work but it’s
just incredible this is an amazing sauce
Antonio Thank you Grandma all right so
the next thing the last thing we’re
going to do with these Tomatoes
thankfully is we are going to
put what we’ve the actual kind of meat
of the Tomato the second stage of the
Tomato isn’t that interesting so that’s
really the tomato puree exactly wow I
can’t wait to taste
this okay great all right actually I
love this idea of making the sauce and
putting the pasta into the sauce this is
when I like to put that kind of more
coating cheese on it so this isack take
that package mozzarella mozzarella the
whole thing yeah okay put it in
yep so what’s next is we can put this
beautiful mixed up cheesy egg planty
pasta in a bowl okay look at that see
the cheese it’s kind of
gorgeous oh my God is this
[Music]
fantastic well here’s Antonia’s
grandmother she really knew how to
cook