Food on Fridays: Eggplant you can actually eat

I can’t say I am a huge fan of eggplant – I think it’s a textural thing. I sometimes roast slices of it and stick it in a sandwich (with prosciutto and mozzarella), and once in a while I’ll make a garlicky Baba ghanoush dip, but usually I just stay away. But the other day I was channel surfing and landed on the Barefoot Contessa, on the Food Network. Her guest was making an eggplant pasta dish that looked so spectacular it had me practically running to the store for the
ingredients. A couple of hours later I had a steaming pot of pasta that we feasted on all week long (the recipe says 4-6, but I think this could feed 8-10). It’s the perfect way to use eggplant while it’s in season (and costs only $1), and I think it would be great for a dinner party.

Recipe’s after the jump.

From Barefoot Contessa:
Antonia’s Pasta Alle Melenzana (Eggplant Pasta)

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
1½ pounds dry fettucine
1 pounds fresh mozzarella, cut into ½” cubes
½ pound packaged mozzarella, cut into ½” cubes
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat ½ 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 fettucine 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 sauté 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.