Spaghetti with eggplant mousse, chickpeas, dried cherry tomatoes and peppers

Pasta alla Norma - a dish that immediately springs to mind when you think of Sicilian cuisine. Just as you can't imagine Bernese rösti without bacon, Sicilian pasta includes eggplant. That's why I take the Norma recipe as a basis and adapt it to the contents of the new Sicilian packet. It contains incredibly tasty ingredients that can all be combined with each other. These include the passata, which sold out after just three days and for which the tomatoes were specially grown for Crowdcontainer. If you were unable to secure a passata and cannot order a Sicily packet, you can of course use another good organic passata for this recipe. To get the full flavor, I recommend adding as few spices as possible. The natural acidity can easily be removed by boiling it down. It is therefore not necessary to add sugar or anything similar - as is the case with any tomato sauce. Patience is therefore required. This also applies to the preparation of the eggplants. Braised in the oven for a long time, they develop the incomparably harmonious taste that an eggplant piccata never achieves and which has made Pasta alla Norma so famous. They also never taste bitter this way and therefore do not need to be "washed out" with salt, as is often recommended. Patience is required for this recipe anyway. It is therefore not suitable for "quick cooking". But that's just like Sicily: enjoyment takes time.

Pasta made from the Timilia wheat variety - I was already excited and looking forward to trying it. During processing, I noticed that it is easy to miss the point at which the pasta is al dente. Whereas "conventional" spaghetti such as Barilla or similar can easily wait a few minutes in the resting cooking water until it is ready for further processing, Timilia spaghetti has to be drained just before it is al dente and served immediately so that it is perfectly al dente on the plate. The 8 minutes cooking time stated on the packaging should therefore be interpreted in Italian terms: it may be 8 minutes, it may be less, but it could also be more.

Chickpeas were somewhat forgotten in our part of the world for a long time and have been experiencing a revival in recent years - thanks to humus and falafel. Another aspect has been added recently: Aquafaba, or bean water. This refers to the cooking water from chickpeas and the like, which can be processed like beaten egg whites and is therefore causing euphoria in vegan cuisine, for example. When I cook chickpeas, I naturally also use the cooking water. In this case, for the eggplant mousse. However, you can also use it separately and make an almond mousse with the almond butter. I will probably deal with that separately.

Regarding aquafaba, specific blogs do not quite agree on whether making aquafaba from dried chickpeas 100% works or not and therefore recommend using canned chickpea water. I say, if it doesn't work with this pasta recipe, just leave it out. The eggplant puree tastes just as good. However, if you follow the instructions below exactly, it should work. I use guar gum to achieve a consistent foamy, creamy consistency. You can find guar gum in health food, organic or vegan stores.

If aquafaba is not used here, the total preparation time is reduced considerably.

Ingredients

For 4 people

• 100 g dried chickpeas
• 1 pinch of guar gum
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 pcs. Eggplants
• 2 pcs. garlic cloves
• 2 pcs. sprigs of rosemary
• A few drops of olive oil
• ½ tsp coarse sea salt
• 2 dl tomato passata
• 2 tbsp dried cherry tomatoes
• 1 tbsp dried peppers
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 half lemon
• 400 g spaghetti timilia
• Salt
• Pepper from the mill
• Thyme fresh or dried
• fresh herbs to garnish, such as oregano

Preparation

Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of water in the fridge. The next day, be sure to empty out the soaking water, as the poisonous phasin will have dissolved. Even though it is destroyed by heat, I would still recommend using fresh water for cooking. Some people add baking soda to the cooking water to make the chickpeas nice and soft. I sometimes add a little turmeric and a little oil to the cooking water for other applications to make the chickpeas nice and yellow. But if we want aquafaba, we don't add anything, because sometimes it still works, sometimes it doesn't, but certainly without any additions. We cook the chickpeas over a low heat for quite a long time so that the desired substances can dissolve and make sure that the water never bubbles. So it will take an hour. When the chickpeas are soft, boil down until the water just covers the peas. Cool the chickpeas in the cooking water and place in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours. If we leave out the foam, this step is unnecessary. Cooking is then also quicker.

Preparation

Wash the eggplants, cut in half lengthways and make diamond-shaped cuts on the inside. Place the eggplant halves in a gratin dish with the inside facing upwards. Peel the garlic cloves, cut into thin slices and place on top of the eggplants together with the rosemary sprigs. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and olive oil. Cover the gratin dish with aluminum foil and roast in a preheated oven at 200°C for approx. 1 hour. It's worth taking your time, really!

Slowly boil down 2 dl passata with 4 dl water on the stove, i.e. over a low heat.

Heat the water and pour over the cherry tomatoes and peppers. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, then pour off the water. Cut the peppers into small pieces.

When the eggplants are soft, remove the rosemary and scrape the flesh from the skin with a fork. Puree together with the cooked garlic and set aside.

Now for the aquafaba: beat the cooled chickpea cooking water with a hand mixer or whisk until frothy. Be careful, it won't work in a smoothie mixer, hand blender, blender or Thermomix. If foam starts to form, add a pinch of salt and a pinch of guar gum and continue to whisk until a foamy cream has formed.

Boil the water for the spaghetti, salt well and cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet. Cook the Valdibella Timilia spaghetti for a little less time and drain before it is al dente. Keep some of the cooking water.

In the meantime, heat some oil and butter in a pan and fry the chickpeas in it. Make sure the pan doesn't get too hot so that the butter doesn't burn. This is also good for the oil. When the chickpeas start to color, add the cherry tomatoes and peppers, season with pepper and a little thyme and squeeze half a lemon over them.

Sideboards

Toss the spaghetti in the passata so that it adheres completely to the pasta. If it has thickened too much, add a little pasta cooking water.

Arrange the pasta on a plate, top with the chickpea, cherry tomato and pepper mixture and sprinkle with a few roughly chopped fresh herbs.

Carefully fold the aquafaba into the eggplant purée and spoon the mousse onto the spaghetti.