There’s a scene in the Italian TV series Il Commissario Montalbano where the detective sits down to an enormous tray of baked pasta and is asked whether he would have eaten the whole thing by himself had his colleagues not shown up. His answer? “Perché, c’è qualcosa di male?” — “Why, is there something wrong with that?” It’s hard to argue with him. The dish in question is pasta ‘ncasciata, and once you understand what goes into it, you’ll understand Montalbano completely.
Pasta ‘ncasciata is a baked pasta dish that originated in the province of Messina, in the north-east of Sicily. It belongs to the great family of Sicilian pasta al forno (oven-baked pastas), but it takes things further than most. Think of it as a layered bake rather than a simple pasta gratin: meat ragù, golden fried aubergine, caciocavallo cheese, hard-boiled eggs, and salami, all stacked between layers of pasta and baked until bubbling and bronzed on top.
