Food of My Friend: Eggplant and Country Ham Ragù

I owe thanks to my singing pal, Rachel K. for this one. She posted the recipe on her Facebook page with a high degree of praise and unbeknownst to her, I tucked it away for a future post. I know Rachel appreciates good food but she doesn't often post about it. When she does, I pay attention!


The recipe said it can be made three days in advance so I made it on Sunday. Here are the cast members.


It's super-easy, too. Slice a pound and a half of eggplant into 1/2" cubes and brown them up, half at a time, in some olive oil. I used my smaller Dutch oven to get a good brown on 'em.


Suggestion: prep all your ingredients first so you can just add things as needed. I really underestimated how quickly the eggplant would cook and was frantically chopping onion to get that going after the eggplant was removed. I used prosciutto in place of the ham. It went in with the onions and garlic and a little more oil.


Tomato paste, unsweetened cocoa powder and the chipotle chile in adobo sauce were added next. I have never cooked with this particular chile; the recipe suggested 1 or 2. I am glad I went with one! It was a fiery morsel! I didn't need to chop it; I just mashed it right in.


When the cocoa powder got toasty smelling and the sauce turned this nice brick-red, I added the next ingredients.


The tomato sauce, some water and the cooked eggplant went in and allowed to simmer for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.


The fish sauce was mixed in and since I wasn't using it right away, I allowed it to cool before I put it into a container for the fridge. The taste was already really intense; a lovely rich mix with so much flavor and a kick from the chipotle. I couldn't wait to see how it continued to meld when I actually used it in a few days.


Fast forward to today: I got the linguine going in some salted water.


I needed to reserve some of the pasta water for the sauce so I took it out before I forgot about it and dumped everything down the drain. Keep an eye on the pasta; it's going to cook a bit in the sauce so you want to drain it as soon as it hits al dente.


Two tablespoons of butter were melted into the reserved pasta water and the ragù was added as well.


I added the drained noodles to the sauce and once it came to a simmer and the noodles were nicely coated, I took it off the heat and topped with chopped Italian parsley.

The guys really enjoyed this; it's a nice change from a typical tomato-y pasta and the chipotle added both heat and a lovely smokiness. I liked the addition of the fish sauce; there was no overwhelming fishiness but it added a different note to the eggplant. Yum!


Here is the promised link:

 Eggplant and Country Ham Ragù

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