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
- 500 g Rigatoni
- 1 Aubergine
- Olive Oil
- 100g Provola cheese
- 1 Mozzarella
- 100 g Cooked ham
- 400 ml Tomato sauce (if you have time, make your own. As you can see from the pic, I cheated.)
- 100 g Grated Parmesan or Grana Padano
For the meatballs
- 450 g Minced beef
- 25 g White breadcrumbs
- 1 Egg
- 15g Grated parmesan
- Parsley, chopped
- 1 Clove garlic, finely chopped
- White pepper
- Heat the oven to 180°C
- 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 🙂
Great job. Thanks your. 🙂
I asked my friend Jimbo for advice on portion size. He thought it was on the small side 😉
Cau Kravo 🙂
ciao dj krysa! yesterday i did pasta al forno (czech version of cheese but i try choose the best one..:o) it is realy good! i add garlic also to tomato sauce. i thing it is mor than for 4 people. me and renda are big eater and we have food for 3 days…:o)) but i did not sparing with ham and cheese…:o) ciao vole