Extra-Cheesy Eggplant and Rigatoni Bake | Sue Li | NYT Cooking

I'm just so scared. Oh my God. It just looks crazy. Cut, cut. Hello, I'm Sue Lee. I'm in the New York Times cooking kitchen and we're going to make a cheesy eggplant rigatoni bake today. This dish is inspired by pasta alla norma, a classic Italian eggplant pasta dish. It's a one pan dish. You get your carbs, you get your protein from the cheese, your vegetables, which is from the eggplant and the tomatoes. Really, it's all the food groups that you need. I think people like cheesy pasta and sometimes they like eggplant. Eggplant is one of those vegetables that requires a little bit of attention and patience. And if you give it the attention, you will get delicious eggplant in the end. I'm going to first salt the pasta water generously and then add a pound of rigatoni. Give it a stir. Let it come to a boil on high and then we're going to lower the heat. I'm setting a seven minute timer. I want the pasta to be cooked a little under al dente. While the water's boiling, I'm going to cut up the eggplant. First, cut them into one inch wide planks. You can use Italian eggplant, globe eggplant. I actually think you can use a Chinese eggplant if you wanted to. It's up to you. This is probably scary to people, right? If I use this big knife. Slice the onion. Okay, so the pasta is cooked to a little under al dente and I'm just going to scoop it into this bowl. We're going to rinse it under cold water to cool it down. We're doing this because it's going to take a minute to cook the eggplant, so I don't want the pasta to keep cooking. Okay, so the pasta's cooled off to the side and I'm also saving the pasta cooking water. Now, let's cook eggplant. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil. Swirl it around. We're going to add about half of the eggplant. I got oil on the hypebeast shirt. I knew this was going to happen. Protect the threads. I should never wear nice clothing when I'm cooking. It's what I get for not wearing an apron. Okay, so season generously with salt. It may seem like it's not enough oil in the beginning. Walk away from it and know that eventually the moisture from the eggplant will dry out, like it's going to keep cooking, right? This is when you need to have some patience and then the oil, you'll see, will start to eventually come out of the eggplant, if that makes sense. I cook it in two batches because you don't want to crowd the pan. You want to make sure it just hangs out a little bit. You do want to stir it around so it doesn't burn in spots. Like I tell people to be patient, but really I'm not patient. I'm like... But you see, it's already happening. It's not burning. The moisture's getting cooked out. I haven't needed to add extra oil. You just hang out. Be patient. So now we're going to transfer the first batch of cooked eggplant into a clean bowl. We're going to start the second batch. Add another two tablespoons of olive oil and add eggplant in. And we'll cook it exactly like last time. I may adjust the temperature and lower it a little bit because the pan is already quite hot. I'm going to transfer the second batch into the same large bowl of eggplant. Two tablespoons of olive oil. Let's cook the onion and garlic. Oh, I chopped some garlic and it's in here as well. The onions have been cooking for about four to five minutes. They're browned on the edges and tender. Okay, I'm crushing these whole tomatoes with my hand or you can use a can of crushed tomatoes. We're going to just do a quick simmer so that the tomatoes break down a little bit with the onions. I'm taking out one and a half cups of the pasta cooking water and I'm going to add it to this tomato sauce. Now I'm going to toss all these ingredients together and put them in the baking dish. So first we're going to butter this baking dish. I'm going to tear up some basil. I'm going to add the sauce to the eggplant and the rigatoni. Oh my God. Stir it all together. I do believe this will taste great, okay? It just looks crazy. Okay, okay, okay. I got to chill. So I'm just going to add... I added a cup of grated fresh mozzarella. I'm just going to dump it all in and stir it because there's no way. I put it away because I was like, there's no way I'm adding more stuff in this bowl. But here I am. You don't think this is cute? Much more sanitary. It's super cheesy. That's why cheesy is the first word in the recipe. Then we're going to bake it and all the pasta water will be absorbed in the sauce. The dish looked like it was a bit messy going in, but look at it now. It's very bubbly and beautiful. Let's try it. You know what? It's very fresh. The eggplant's really tender. The tomatoes give it brightness. It's cheesy, saucy. It's like a very vegetable-forward baked pasta. If you're feeling like you need a hot, cheesy pasta bake dish, you should definitely make it tonight. So you can find this cheesy eggplant and rigatoni bake and other recipes at New York Times Cooking. See you later. See you next time. See you tomorrow. Bye.