Pasta with squid and aubergines

For a tasty and fragrant first course, we suggest this mouth-watering Pasta with Squid and Aubergines. If you wish, you could prepare the recipe without pasta and use the squid and aubergines as a second course, or as a topping for bread croutons or bruschetta.

Needless to say, the dish renders best when prepared using aubergines in season and fresh squid, which you can recognise by their bright, intense-coloured skin and intact, firm tentacles. The flesh should be white and shiny; if the lighter part has a yellowish tinge, it means that the squid has been fished a few days ago and is therefore not very fresh.

Pasta with squid and aubergines. The ingredients

  • 350g short pasta (try our Paccheri)

  • 400g squid

  • 1 clove of garlic

  • 2 aubergines

  • Pachino tomatoes to taste

  • 100ml dry white wine

  • Basil to taste

  • Extra virgin olive oil to taste

  • Salt and pepper to taste

The recipe for Pasta with squid and aubergines

Wash the aubergines well, then hull them. Cut the aubergines into slices, cut them into small pieces, place them in a colander and cover them with a layer of salt, then cover with a plate and place a weight on it. In this way the aubergines will purge the excess water. This will take about half an hour.

Quickly rinse the aubergine chunks and dry them by blotting with a clean cloth. Drizzle a large pan with two turns of extra virgin olive oil; when the oil is hot, plunge the aubergines into it and fry, then remove them from the oil and drain off the excess grease, placing the pieces on blotting paper.

Clean the squid (if not practical, follow this video guide), then cut them into rings of equal width. Dry the shellfish and set them aside.

We wash the cherry tomatoes, chop them up and cook them over a low flame in a pan in which we have browned a clove of garlic in a splash of EVO oil; if you like, add a few pieces of Calabrian chilli pepper. While cooking, add a few tablespoons of water.

We turn up the flame, add the squid, let it cook for 2 minutes and then deglaze with white wine. Let the alcohol evaporate, then lower the flame, cover with a lid and leave to cook for about ten minutes, taking care to stir everything well from time to time. We add the aubergines and leave them to take on flavour for a few minutes.

We cook our pasta in plenty of salted water, drain it al dente and place it in the pan together with a ladle of cooking water, and finish cooking the squid and aubergine pasta. After serving we add a few leaves of fresh basil to the dish.