Pasta alla Norma is a versatile dish. Delicious as a comforting family meal or as a refined main course for guests. Do you want to serve wine with it? Pair it with a robust Sicilian red wine, like Nero d'Avola.
The classic recipe for pasta alla Norma comes from Sicily (specifically the city of Catania). That's why we thought it would be fun and tasty to combine it with our Sicilian fennel seeds, and it turned out to be a hit! The original recipe is made with fried eggplants, fresh tomatoes, and ricotta salata. We didn't fry the eggplants but pan-fried them to keep it a bit lighter. And for convenience, we opted for canned tomatoes, but when tomatoes are in season, it's also delicious to use fresh tomatoes. Perfect for using up overripe tomatoes!
Ricotta salata is a firm, salted ricotta cheese that is grated over the dish before serving. This is not easily available in Dutch supermarkets, so we opted for regular ricotta. But if you happen to pass by an Italian deli and can get your hands on ricotta salata: definitely do it!
The name "alla Norma" was likely inspired by Vincenzo Bellini's famous opera "Norma," a well-known composer from Catania. The dish was supposedly so extraordinary that it was compared to Bellini's masterpiece.
