Rigatoni baked with aubergines and meatballs

After yesterday’s simple recipe, I’m going to the other extreme today. This takes quite a while to assemble but is worth it in the end. Real Italian ‘comfort food’  ;-)   

Serves 4

 500g Rigatoni
1 Aubergine
Olive Oil
100g Provola cheese
1 Mozzarella
100g Cooked ham
400ml Tomato sauce (if you have time, make your own. As you can see from the pic, I cheated.)
100g Grated Parmesan or Grana Padano

For the meatballs

450g Minced beef
25g White breadcrumbs
1 Egg
15g Grated parmesan
Parsley, chopped
1 Clove garlic, finely chopped
White pepper

• Heat the oven to 180C
• Make the meatballs by mixing all the ingredients and forming small balls with the mixture.
• 
•  Boil the rigatoni in salted water until cooked. Drain. Cut the aubergine into slices 1cm thick. Grill until soft.
  Grate the provola, slice the mozzarella, chop the ham.
• In a baking dish put a layer of rigatoni. Place in order a layer of aubergine and then a few meatballs. Cover with tomato sauce, cheeses and ham. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up. Scatter grated Parmesan over the surface.
• 
• Bake for about 25-35 minutes until the mixture is bubbling and the top is golden.

This is adapted from a recipe collected by Matthew Fort in his book Eating Up Italy(excellent foodie porn). The original included sliced hardboiled eggs and he fried the aubergines. I didn’t think my arteries could cope with that, Ps I decided this after I’d taken the ingredients pic.