Involtini di Melanzane
Involtini like these turn up across Sicily in more than one version -- some kitchens roll the eggplant around a coil of thin pasta instead of cheese, which sounds unlikely until you taste it. Ours has always been the more familiar one: ricotta, mozzarella, a little egg to hold it together, and a slow bake under tomato sauce until everything inside has properly melted into itself. My grandmother made it this way, and nobody since has found a reason to change it.
Ingredients
- 2 large eggplants, sliced lengthwise into thin planks (about 5mm)
- Fine sea salt, for degorging
- Olive oil, for brushing
- 300g ricotta, well drained
- 150g fresh mozzarella, torn or grated
- 60g Parmigiano Reggiano, grated, plus more to finish
- 1 egg
- Fresh basil, chopped, plus more to finish
- 500g peeled plum tomatoes, crushed by hand
- 2 cloves garlic
- Black pepper
Serves 4–6.
Cookware Required
- uno scolapasta (a colander, for salting the eggplant)
- una griglia o una padella scanalata (a grill or ridged grill pan)
- una teglia da forno (a baking dish)
Method
Salt the eggplant slices, and let them sit in a colander for thirty minutes to draw out their bitterness and excess moisture. Pat dry, brush with olive oil, and grill or roast until tender and lightly charred at the edges, a few minutes per side. Set aside to cool.
Combine the ricotta, mozzarella, half the Parmigiano, the egg, and the chopped basil in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and mix until smooth and well combined -- the egg is what keeps this filling from running everywhere once it hits the oven, so don't be tempted to leave it out.
Make a simple sauce: warm a little olive oil, cook the garlic until pale gold, add the crushed tomatoes and a pinch of salt, and simmer for fifteen minutes.
Spread a thin layer of sauce across the bottom of a baking dish. Place a spoonful of the ricotta filling at one end of each eggplant slice, and roll the slice snugly around it. Arrange the rolls seam-side down in the dish, spoon the remaining sauce over the top, and scatter with the remaining Parmigiano.
Bake at 190°C (375°F) for twenty to twenty-five minutes, until bubbling and lightly colored on top. Finish with more torn basil.
Quando Va Storto
If the filling runs out of the rolls rather than staying put, either the ricotta wasn't drained well enough beforehand, or the egg was left out -- it's doing real structural work here, not just enriching the mixture. If the rolls fall apart on the plate, the eggplant slices were cut unevenly, or there wasn't enough sauce underneath to hold them seam-side down while they baked. And if the filling tastes bland despite everything else being right, it was under-seasoned at the mixing stage; ricotta is mild on its own, and needs real salt, real pepper, and a generous hand with the Parmigiano to taste like something rather than nothing.