Baked Pasta Messina Style, original recipe.

This is a classic holiday dish in my city, and today I want to propose it to you in its original recipe that has ancient roots.
The spread of baked pasta coincides with the Arab domination of the 9th century, in fact we inherited the tradition of timballos (pasta ‘ncasciata or ‘mfurnata).
From there, we arrived at the classic Sicilian baked anelletti.
The different versions of baked pasta abound in ingredients, such as meat, cheeses, vegetables, cured meats, and even eggs.
In Messina, we do not use anelletti but rather the cataneselle rigate which hold up better in cooking than the smooth ones.
The sauce is a ragù enriched with peas, in the very rich filling we can find béchamel, boiled eggs, mortadella ham, fried eggplants, provola cheese, and Parmesan.
A lucullian dish that represents the first land course par excellence in Messina.

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Difficulty: Medium
Cost: Medium
Preparation time: 3 Hours
Portions: 6
Cooking methods: Frying, Slow Cook, Oven
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Region: Sicily
Seasonality: All Seasons

616.01 Kcal

calories per serving

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Energy 616.01 (Kcal)
Carbohydrates 42.48 (g) of which sugars 6.07 (g)
Proteins 35.25 (g)
Fat 35.53 (g) of which saturated 13.43 (g)of which unsaturated 11.75 (g)
Fibers 7.11 (g)
Sodium 1,757.80 (mg)

Indicative values for a portion of 333 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA^* and FoodData Central^** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.

^* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ^** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Ingredients

Baked Pasta Messina Style,

2 oz Tropea red onion
1 stalk celery
3.5 oz carrot
10.5 oz beef (ground)
1/4 cup white wine
4 cups tomato puree
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup peas
to taste salt
10.5 oz pasta (catanisella rigata)
2 hard-boiled eggs
10.5 oz eggplants (fried)
to taste sunflower oil
3.5 oz cooked ham (cubed)
3.5 oz mortadella (cubed)
5 oz provola cheese (cubed)
3.5 oz grated Parmesan cheese (or Nebrodi cheeses)

Baked Pasta Messina Style

Tools

What we need to make the

3 Pots
1 Small pot
1 Baking dish 10×16
4 Bowls

Steps

Let’s go to the kitchen

Choose good ground meat, tell the butcher to mince it twice.
Slice the eggplants with the peel on, sprinkle with salt and let them drain in a colander for 30 minutes.
After the time, rinse the slices of eggplant and pat them dry with a cloth.
Put some sunflower oil in a pan and heat it, then fry the eggplants on both sides, and let them drain in a colander of excess oil.
For those who want lighter eggplants, you can bake them in the oven by placing them on the oven tray and brushing them with oil, baking for 15 minutes at 375°F, or even fry them in an air fryer.
Finely peel the onion, carrot, and celery, and transfer them to a large pot, add the extra virgin olive oil and let it fry for about 3 minutes
Add the ground meat and let it brown until the meat turns white.
Once the meat is white, deglaze with white wine and let it evaporate,
then add the peas and tomato puree.
Adjust with salt and let it cook for about 40 minutes. We will obtain a not very dense ragù in which we will cook the pasta.
Also harden the eggs, and cut into small cubes
the ham and mortadella
and the provola.
Drain the pasta, and cook it for half the time described on the package.
add 3/4 of the ragù and mix.
Now that we have everything ready, let’s layer it in the baking dish like this:
At the base of the baking dish or casserole, place a ladle of ragù
then 1 ladle of pasta and then the other ingredients in succession:
The slices of eggplant,
the diced ham and mortadella,
the diced provola,
the chopped hard-boiled eggs..
and another layer of pasta, and so on until the ingredients are used up.
Finish the baking dish with the last part of the sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan.
Cover the dish first with a sheet of parchment paper, and then with a sheet of aluminum foil. Seal the sheets on all sides, and place in a preheated oven for 15 min
At the end of cooking, carefully take the dish out of the oven, open the wrapping and remove it.
Put the dish back in the oven on grill function at 392°F for another 5 minutes at mid-oven height.
Here is the Baked Pasta Messina Style ready.