Spaghetti with roasted tomato and aubergines…

 

I know its no news to whoever reads this blog that I love pasta. And pasta is dancing in my mind’s eye all the time. In its spaghetti form, in its fusilli form and as Lasagne. (Yeah, Penne is not a personal favourite). What makes or breaks the pasta is its sauce. The freshness of the ingredients, the right balance of the herbs in the sauce and the method of making the sauce, that determines the taste of the pasta.

While searching through my blog for some red-sauce based pasta, I found this recipe in which I blend all the ingredients after they are cooked. That looked like the best way to make my own sauce back then, but on giving more thought, I came up with this one. Puree the tomatoes separately. And then adding them to the onion-garlic mixture with herbs. Trust me, this one tastes so much better, and you can feel all the veggies.

Also serving the pasta with mozzarella chunks was something I read on a site, and thought was a cool idea. If you love Mozzarella but think that its stringy texture will interfere with the texture of the pasta, sprinkle the chunks after your pasta is done.

I added aubergines to this to have another flavour in the sauce, but you can totally omit them and make yourself a Arrabiata pasta. Typically, you’ll need two ladles of this sauce to make one serving of pasta, for one person.

Ingredients

(Serves 4-6 people for main course)
Ripe red tomatoes – 1 kg
Aubergines, diced into thin slices – 1/2 kg
Onions, large – Diced – 2-3
Garlic cloves – crushed – 15
Dried basil – 2-3 tbsp
Dried oregano – 2-3 tbsp
Red chilli flakes – 2-3 tbsp
Sea salt – to taste
Olive Oil – 3tbsp

Instructions
Pierce a fork into the tomato, and put it on a high flame directly. The skin of the tomato starts burning, and it gets roasted. Do this for the entire batch of tomatoes, and let them cool.
Once they cool down, peel the skin off and crush them in a mixer/blender.
Heat this liquid till the water evaporates, and you are left with thick tomato puree.

In a pan, heat the oil, and sauté the onions and garlic. Once they turn baby-pinkish, add the aubergines to this, and sauté till all are cooked. Add the herbs for flavour, and salt to taste.

Now add the tomato puree and boil. Check the salt to taste.

This sauce can be saved or frozen in the refrigerator to be used later.

To make pasta, cook the pasta per the instructions , and toss it with the sauce. Serve hot with Mozzarella cheese chunks.

The freshness of the tomato will hit you, and before you can recover , the cheese will melt in  your mouth. And then its the savouring of the other herbs and spices in it… Trust me, this recipe will never go wrong.