Sicilian Swordfish Pasta Sauce Ragu With Eggplant Recipe (2024)

This swordfish pasta recipe is a delicious summer lunch made with swordfish tomato sauce and fried eggplants. It is a typical dish from Catania in Sicily, where eggplants and swordfish are local delicacies. Swordfish is an oily fish with fatty acids similar to bluefin tuna, with chunky meat without bones. It is easy to make, and as with all seafood dishes, it doesn't require a long cooking time.

Pasta with swordfish and fried eggplants is a specialty from Sicily around Catania and Messina.

The fresh tomatoes, the basil, and the eggplants are all locally grown around the Etna slope, and the swordfish fished in the Messina Strait.

This Sicilian swordfish pasta sauce is the pasta alla Norma taken to a higher level.

Fried eggplants are mixed with tomato sauce and basil but instead of ricotta salata cheese, swordfish stew is added.

It is a quick, complete lunch common during the hot summer months in southern Italy.

Other quick seafood pasta dishes are: spaghetti alle vongole, Pasta with black ink, pasta with shrimp and zucchini and shrimp tomato sauce pasta.

Swordfish meat

For this easy swordfish recipe, we use the meat from the neck of the swordfish around the top fin.

It is tastier and costs half the price of the most common swordfish steak.

I like to use different parts of the swordfish and throw away only the minimum. Eating most of the meat is a way of honoring the death of any animal.

Swordfish ragu is not cooked long like a beef ragu, as fish should never be overcooked.

It is much faster to make than regular ragu and is lighter and perfect for a summer lunch.

If you want to know more about how to buy and cook fresh swordfish, don't miss the article: How to buy and cook wild fresh swordfish meat.

Other baked swordfish recipes are baked swordfish recipes with breadcrumbs, and oven baked swordfish in foil

Note: you can make this same recipe with tuna or salmon.

Ingredients

All the flavors of Sicily in this recipe are:

• Fresh ripe tomatoes: San Marzano tomatoes are compact, contain less water, and have fewer seeds. Perfect for making a fresh tomato sauce. You can also use grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes.
• Eggplants: I use long eggplants and ensure they are not bulky. If the base is too wide, they are likelier to have too many seeds.
• Pasta: use short tubular pasta with stripes like Maccheroni rigati or Rigatoni. This shape helps absorb the sauce and create the perfect eggplant bite. If you cannot find Maccheroni, use other short pasta like Penne or Ziti. Chunky homemade pasta like Busiate or Fileja is also a good option.
• Fresh basil: you can also use fresh parsley
• Salt
• Fresh garlic: do not use garlic powder
• Extra virgin olive oil
• White wine: optional

See recipe card for quantities

Choosing the eggplants

Bitter eggplants full of seeds can ruin your final dish.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to tell if an eggplant is full of seeds, so I always buy my eggplants in grocery shops I trust.

If the eggplants have too many seeds, I just throw them away and never buy vegetables from that shop again.

I take my eggplants seriously, so don't mess with my eggplants!

My mother always sliced the eggplants, seasoned them with abundant salt, laid them inside a strainer, and put something heavy on top to let the acid juices drain out of the eggplant.

I no longer do that as I found the eggplants are not as acidic as they used to be.

If you think they are, let them drain in salt for 2 hours before using them.

Instructions

Frying the eggplants

1. Cut the eggplants into cubes, removing the skin

2. Deep fry the eggplants in very hot extra virgin olive oil until golden brown

3. Drain them on kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil

Cook the swordfish

1. Wash the swordfish and dry the excess water with a paper towel

2. In a large pan with high hedges, stir-fry the swordfish

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3. Cook it on both sides, but do not overcook it.

4. Remove from the pan and wait until it cools down before you clean it.

5. Remove skin and bones and break it into bite-size pieces and put it aside

DO NOT CLEAN THE PAN AFTER YOU HAVE COOKED THE FISH

Peel the tomatoes

If you do not want the skin of the tomatoes, here is how to peel them:

1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes
2. Leave the tomatoes in hot water for 5 minutes
3. Take them out with a ladle
4. Cut with a pointed knife
5. The entire peel will come off easily

Making the sauce

1. In the same pan where you cooked the fish, stir-fry the garlic cloves

2. Cut the tomatoes into chunks

3. Add the basil, season with salt, and cook at medium to low temperature

4. Simmer until the tomatoes melt into a sauce.

Putting it all together

1. Bring to boil a large pot of salted water and cook the pasta 1 minute less than the time specified on the package directions

2. Add the fish and the eggplants to the sauce and mix. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Hint: Now you can deglaze with white wine.

3. Add the cooked pasta to the pan and stir

4. Serve and add pepper or hot chili flakes if you like spicy food

If you want to follow the Italian rules for cooking pasta, you can read the recipe: 38 tips on how to cook pasta like an Italian

Top tips

• This recipe is best made with meat from the neck and around the top fin.
• Use San Marzano tomatoes and long eggplants
• Once the swordfish is slightly cooked, removing the bones and cartilage from the flesh will be easy.
• DO NOT CLEAN THE PAN AFTER YOU HAVE COOKED THE FISH. Use the same pan for cooking the tomatoes to absorb the flavors of the swordfish
• If you think the eggplants can be too acidic, cut them into slices and let them drain in salt for 2 hours before frying them.
• Pasta should always be al dente. Cook 1 minute less than what is written on the package instructions

The myth of San Marzano tomatoes

The San Marzano tomato is an Italian PDO product from the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino area, named after the city of San Marzano sul Sarno in the region of Campania.

Its oblong shape and fleshy pulp make it ideal for use in the food processing industry.

It's particularly suitable for quick cooking due to its compactness, less water content, and fewer seeds, allowing a more lively flavor in tomato sauce.

Their seed arrived in Campania in 1770, gifted by the Viceroy of Peru to the King of Naples, and thrived in the fertile volcanic soil.

The huge demand for this type of tomato in the United States cannot be served only by the real PDO San Marzano tomatoes produced in Campania.

The New York Times in the article The Mistery of the San Marzano denounces its counterfeiting:

«Italy is one of the largest producers of tomato paste in the world but not all of this product comes from Italian tomatoes. Tomato paste is imported into Italy from China. Producers have learned to dilute triple concentrate with water, add salt, pasteurize it, and sell it as double tomato paste. But this cannot be labeled as "produced in Italy", even when the tomatoes were produced in China but processed in Italy».

Italian law permits unlabeled tomato cans to be exported, and upon arrival in America, any label can be added to them.

If you want to ensure you buy real San Marzano tomatoes from Agro Sarnese-Nocerino area, read the label carefully:

• If the label is written in Italian, it doesn't mean they are the real thing
• Make sure it says produced in Italy, not processed in Italy
• Look for the PDO certification
• If the price is reasonable, they are not the real thing

Recipes with eggplants you might also like

For more eggplant recipes, check out the category: Also check the recipes below:

• Baked Eggplant Pasta Anelletti
• Grilled zucchini eggplants and peppers
• Aubergine caviar
• Sicilian Caponata Recipe
• Deep Fried Eggplant Balls
• Easy Ratatouille Recipe Baked
• Healthy Eggplant Parmesan
• Vegetarian Rice Timbale with Grilled Eggplants Recipe
• Eggplant Milanese
• Pizza with Fresh Vegetables
• Traditional Pasta Alla Norma with Eggplants

For more appetizers with eggplants, check out the story: 15 Authentic Italian Eggplant Recipes

For seafood ideas for the Feast of Seven Fishes, check out this Web Story.

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