--- Season 3 of airs Tuesdays at 8pm on SBS Food, or stream it free via SBS on Demand ---
There are some dishes of elegance, carried throughout history on a plate of fame, that appear so simple that beautiful complexities may be unknowingly underestimated.
One of those dishes, invented many years ago upon a grand operatic note, is the seemingly simple Sicilian favourite, pasta alla Norma.
Opera singer and host of SBS’s Silvia Colloca says is one of her all-time favourite meals. It’s also a simple dish that she believes should receive a standing ovation for its bold flavours.
But its legendary status comes from its deep connection to Italian opera.
“Pasta alla Norma is a legendary Sicilian pasta, blending a full-bodied tomato sauce with fried eggplant and the secret ingredient, salted ricotta cheese,” says Colloca, as she makes the famed dish in episode five of the new series. “But its legendary status comes from its deep connection to Italian opera.”
is said to have derived its name from the opera Norma, by composer Vincenzo Bellini, which premiered in Italy in 1831. Legend has it that the Italian journalist, Nino Martoglio tasted the eggplant dish and exclaimed ‘this is a real ‘Norma!’ – meaning that the pasta flavours were nothing short of a masterpiece.
To the uninitiated, pasta alla Norma merely blends pasta with a tomato sauce, garlic and pieces of eggplant. But anyone who truly knows Italian cuisine understands that less is often more.
As Colloca tells SBS, the renowned taste of pasta alla Norma hails from a rich, sweet sugo, a deep eggplant flavour and a slash of saltiness emitted by ricotta salata.
“It’s no wonder that the dish was named after an Italian opera, because once the harmony of cheese mingles with some fresh basilica, this pasta will become the prima donna of any table."
The secrets of a good pasta alla Norma
So how do you create the simple dish, pasta alla Norma, with such a style that the final result makes your tastebuds operatically sing?
Executive chef at Luca Melis, has been overseeing the creation of this dish across the hospitality group’s four restaurants for years.
He says the secret to making a decadent pasta alla Norma lies in following an authentic recipe from Italy, cooking it the way that nonna used to. That means paying attention to each ingredient.
Firstly, choose the right eggplant. “It’s a beautiful product but there are a lot of eggplants on the market in Australia,” Melis, who migrated to Australia 13 years ago, tells SBS. “For this dish, I prefer to use small eggplants as they have less seeds and less water that is usually very bitter. Pick an eggplant that has a thin skin.”
Raw eggplant should be salted for 30 minutes before being washed with fresh water and dried.
The chef also recommends cutting the eggplant into strips for authenticity, just like his nonna and mother used to.
Next, make your sugo using fresh tomatoes. “Sometimes, tinned tomatoes contain preservatives. They also have [different levels] of acid, sugar and salt that may take over the dish. When you use fresh tomatoes you don’t have all of these issues and you can maintain a consistency in the recipe.”
As for the pasta, select a shape that easily holds the sauce. Colloca uses penne while Melis opts for macaroni or rigatoni.
“Most importantly, we don’t use any cheese or butter for pasta alla Norma except for salty ricotta (ricotta salata), which we grate on top of the dish when it’s done.”
Ricotta: what you should know
Dry ricotta is an essential ingredient in the dish, Melis stresses, so do not replace it with fresh ricotta or you will not achieve the desired outcome. But, if you can’t source ricotta salata, there is another option: an amendment to the recipe of Catania that comes from the Sicilian city of Messina.
“One location in Sicily – Catania – uses salted ricotta in the recipe for pasta alla Norma and the other place – Messina – uses baked ricotta. So if you can’t find ricotta salata, use dry ricotta. You can make this yourself by baking fresh ricotta.
“To do this cook fresh ricotta, sprinkled with salt, in the oven at about 60 degrees Celsius for one to one-and-a-half hours. This process will dry out the ricotta, give it a bit of smoke and result in a baked ricotta that you can sprinkle over your Norma.”
Make it at home
Penne alla Norma (penne Norma style with eggplant)
Melis says that if you stick to a few authentic tips when making pasta alla Norma, the famous dish will look simple but taste complex.
“I'm sure that if you follow an original Italian recipe for pasta alla Norma, the final dish will be very nice. It will satisfy everyone from children to nonnas.”
Cook like an Italian
Custard-filled cream puff (bigne alla crema)
