pasta al forno {eggplant & smoked scamorza}

Although I’m all for complicated cooking I’ve learned over the years to tone it down a bit when the table is set for more than eight people. Our home in Rome is self-limiting, since our dining table only seats eight. But in Todi? Between our house guests and our dinner guests’ house guests, when I decide to throw a party it’s more likely we end up with 18 at the table. At the very least.

Ferragosto is one of the biggest holidays in Italy. Although it celebrates the Assumption of the Virgin it’s not an important religious holiday. Since it falls mid-August it’s mostly an excuse to celebrate during Italy’s mass vacation. In fact, if you ask Italians for the definition of Assumption most will give you either a blank look or else a completely lame answer like “Oh, it’s when the Virgin went up.” And of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the literal feast day it’s become. It’s an excuse to eat, plain and simple.

Since we are always in Todi at this time of year it’s become tradition to have a big dinner at our house. While I love to grill and make pizzas this becomes unwieldy for a crowd. This is where the ‘toning it down’ thing becomes essential. I want something that is festive, special and delicious but doesn’t have me hanging out anywhere near the kitchen by the time guests start arriving.

This year we had 22 around the table, so I decided to cook the entire meal in our outside oven. I’ve written about our pizza escapades, and you’ve seen our pizza oven here and here. But before we built our traditional domed oven we installed a different kind of wood-fueled oven under the back porch.

This is the kind of oven that most of our neighbors (and by neighbors I mean farmers, not transplanted city folk) prefer. The locals like it because it’s ‘cleaner’: the wood burns in a separate chamber with no ashes near the food. And it’s certainly much more fuel efficient since it only takes a few logs to get the cooking chamber up to 400 degrees centigrade. And since it’s outside, the kitchen stays nice and cool, even in an August heatwave.

While I  use only the domed oven mostly for pizza, I  prefer the modern oven for roasting. It gets hot as hell, but is much easier to control. I can move things around, letting things brown on the top or the bottom, and I can even raise and lower the temperature by opening and closing the doors.

And did I mention it’s big? Huge in fact. 25 pound turkey at Thanksgiving? No problem. And I can cook a three course meal all at once. Which is what I did on Ferragosto.

The menu: Pasta al Forno, four  Guinea hens and roasted vegetables from the garden. Massive amounts. All cooking outside, in the same oven, under the back porch while I enjoyed cocktails in the garden with our friends.

Pasta al Forno is the perfect first course to serve to a crowd. First of all it’s festive. Secondly, it can be prepared completely ahead of time, to be popped in the oven twenty minutes before you serve it. Lasagna is the best known of these types of casserole-type pastas. But in the south you’re more likely to see short pasta mixed with cheese, tomato sauce and other good things.

Since we were having a meaty main course, I chose to focus on cheese and vegetables. Smoked cheese has become a favorite ingredient this summer, and the local caseificio, Montecristo, in Ponte Rio makes a really good one. I added heaps of fried eggplant from the garden and tossed everything in a light tomato sauce made with organic passata our friend Paolo had just brought down from his farm in Tuscany. A final dusting of grated parmigiano gave it a crispy cheesy crust on top. Which is everyone’s favorite part and really the entire point of making pasta al forno, don’t you think?









Pasta al Forno
serves six

1 pound/500 gr pasta (I like shells, but you can use rigatoni too)
1 liter of tomato puree
2 cloves garlic
salt
red pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil plus oil for frying eggplant
1 1/2 cups cubed smoked scamorza
2-3 small eggplant
About 12 basil leaves, torn
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Eggplant:
Chop eggplant into cubes. Fry in about 2 inches of hot olive oil until golden and soft. Take out with slotted spoon to drain on paper towel. Make sure the eggplant isn’t crowded. You may have to do this in a few batches.

Sauce:
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a saucepan. Add garlic and stir for a minute. Add the red pepper to taste and stir. Add tomato puree and salt. Cook over low heat until it starts to thicken, about 15 minutes. Taste and adjust for salt.

Pasta:
Cook in salted water until al dente and drain. Toss with some olive oil so it doesn’t stick together.

To assemble:

Rub a casserole dish with olive oil. 
In a large bowl mix the pasta with the tomato sauce. Add eggplant and gently stir to mix. Add 1 cup of cubed scamorza and stir to mix. Pour the pasta into the casserole dish. Top with rest of cubed scamorza, grated parmesan and drizzle with olive oil.

Place in preheated oven (200C/400F) and bake until bubbly and browned on top. About 20 minutes.

Let sit for about 5 minutes before serving.