Pasta â Paolina

A Lenten Neapolitan pasta with no meat, fish or cheese in it at all.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g penne or ziti
• 2 aubergines, in 2 cm dice
• 60 g raisins, soaked
• 50 g pine nuts
• 100 g black olives, stoned
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 400 g tinned tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves
• basil
• 7 tablespoons olive oil
• 1.5 teaspoons salt

Method

1. This was cooked by friars in Lent, which is why there is no meat, no fish and no cheese — not even anchovy. Every other aubergine pasta in the collection has at least one of them.
2. Salt the diced aubergine 30 minutes, dry it, and fry it in most of the oil until collapsing and deep gold. Set it aside.
3. Warm the rest of the oil with the garlic, then add the tomatoes and cook 15 minutes.
4. Add the drained raisins, pine nuts, olives and capers.
5. THE RAISINS AND PINE NUTS ARE NOT OPTIONAL. Without them this is a tomato and aubergine pasta; with them it is sweet against salt, which is what the dish is for.
6. Return the aubergine, cook 5 minutes, and finish the pasta in the pan with a ladle of its water.
7. Tear basil in off the heat. No cheese at the table either.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes