Italian recipes from Sorrento: the pasta tower or Torretta di Paccheri video

Published on 25 Dec 2008 by Alison

On watching this video I was ready to rush off to the “Photo” restaurant in Sorrento for lunch. In this video chef Simone Ammendola shows how to make the Torretta di Paccheri, or Paccheri Tower. This is an aubergine and ricotta pasta dish that involves baking the pasta (a kind of large maccheroni) at the end of the cooking process.

Ingredients required: 50 grams of provola cheese, 200 grams of ricotta, 80 grams of vine ripe tomatoes, 160 grams of eggplant, 200 grams of paccheri or maccheroni pasta, 50 grams of grated parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil, one garlic clove, salt and pepper.

Method: Boil the pasta in boiling salted water. Wash and peel the aubergine, keeping the peel aside. Cut into cubes, flour and then fry in olive oil. Drain and place on a paper towell to absorb the oil. When half cooked, drain the pasta and tip into cold water and ice to arrest the cooking process.

Place the ricotta in a bowl, with the aubergine, provola cheese, some parmesan and chopped, fresh basil leaves. Dress with salt and pepper, mix together and place in the fridge for a few minutes. Cut the tomatoes in pieces and fry in a pan with the garlic clove and some oil.

Fill a cone-shaped pastry sack (used in sweets and pastry cooking) with the ricotta filling and fill the paccheri pasta to create a stuffing inside the maccheroni. Place them vertically on a plate, and wrap in thin strips of eggplant. Place in an oven dish a bake for eight minutes at 180 degrees.

For decoration, you can fry some thin strips of the eggplant skin, a couple of basil leaves and even two or three strips of linguine. When the pasta has finished in the oven, place on a plate, serve the tomato and parmesan over the top and dress with the decoration.

Source | Mangiarbene