Ingredients
The following ingredients have 4 Servings
- 1 heavy
- firm eggplant
- EVOO
- for brushing
- plus 2 tablespoons
- Salt and pepper
- 1/2 pound hot Italian sausage
- casings removed
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 3 cloves garlic
- chopped
- 1 teaspoon fennel seed
- about 1/3 palmful
- 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
- a fat pinch
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/6 palmful
- 2 tablespoons sundried tomato paste
- 1 cup chicken stock or water
- One 28-ounce can Italian crushed or chopped tomatoes
- 1 pound large pacchieri
- or large rigatoni
- 500 grams
- Freshly grated pecorino cheese
- about 1 cup plus some to pass at table
- A handful of flatleaf parsley
- finely chopped
Instruction
- Arrange rack 1 rung down from top of oven and preheat oven to high
- Halve the eggplant lengthwise and brush with EVOO, season with salt and pepper and place cut side down on a baking sheet
- Broil eggplant 20 minutes until skin charred and flesh collapsing and tender
- The eggplant will look like flat tires
- Turn the eggplant over with tongs and with the back of your chef knife scrape the flesh away from the skins, slide into a bowl or dish and mash
- Meanwhile, heat a large pot of water to boil for pasta
- For sauce, heat a large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium high heat with EVOO, 2 turns of the pan
- Add sausage and beef and brown and crumble, add garlic and season with fennel, allspice, cumin, salt and pepper
- Stir in sun dried tomato paste, 2 big squirts from a tube, when you can smell the paste and it's incorporated fully, add stock or water and tomatoes, reduce heat a bit and simmer at a bubble
- Cook pasta 1 minute less than directed in salted water
- Just before draining or transferring to sauce reserve ¾ cup of starchy cooking water
- Stir eggplant into meat sauce and combine with pasta and pasta cooking water and cheese, add parsley and toss a full minute then adjust salt and pepper, serve with additional cheese to pass at table
