Spaghetti with enchanted eggplant

Everything tastes great from my new, improvised DIY smoker pot. My smoking hack is so simple that nothing can go wrong. When smoking, please always be careful when preheating the charcoal and don't burn the place down. I recently smoked a piece of yellowfin mackerel for you and explained how to achieve a rich smoky flavor using just one piece of charcoal. (The glowing charcoal goes into a small metal bowl in a large saucepan or wok with a grate and lid, along with a spoonful of smoking dust. The food to be smoked, in turn, goes onto the grate and is heated slightly, but above all, is pleasantly smoked. The "aha" effect is especially great when smoking vegetables, so my tip: Be sure to put a carrot or eggplant in the smoker pot.

First of all, I made a Sicilian pasta alla Norma with smoked eggplant, pretty much like my spaghetti with braised tomatoes, only with the addition of smoked eggplant – what a discovery! Then I tried to develop a new version of cacio e pepe with smoked eggplant (a derivative is what we say in cooking when you vary an established recipe; Béarnaise sauce, for example, is a derivative of hollandaise, as is Choron sauce and many others). My first version of cacio e pepe is a version with black cabbage ; in summer, you can also use pointed cabbage, kohlrabi leaves, or pea pods. For my new interpretation of cacio e pepe, I use smoke, eggplant, and chard – and crispy toasted breadcrumbs, which are a reference to the also highly recommended spaghetti alla carrettiera from Sicily. They also have a pecorino-heavy cheese emulsion as a sauce; presumably, one could see the Carrettiera as a derivative of Cacio e pepe.

Back to the eggplants: Fire-grilled eggplants usually taste surprisingly smoky, because we remove the smoky flavor with the burnt skin. Pot-smoked eggplants, however, really taste smoky. I like to put a few too many coals in the pot because I'm a bit over-committed—avoid that and enjoy spaghetti with delicately smoked eggplant.

You will also need: - 1 wide pot or wok with lid - 1 small metal bowl - 1 suitable grid for the pot

- 1-2 pieces of charcoal

1. Pierce the eggplants a few times all over, then bake in the oven at 160 degrees Celsius (convection oven) for 45 minutes. Remove, halve lengthwise, peel off the skins, halve the flesh lengthwise, and cut into 1.5 cm thick slices. Heat the charcoal with a Bunsen burner or, even better, with a shisha charcoal lighter. Place the charcoal in a small metal bowl, place the bowl in a large pot or wok with a suitable lid, and add smoking powder to the glowing coals. Place a kind of grate on top, then place the eggplant pieces on the grate. Cover immediately and smoke for 15 minutes. Then let it stand until the rest is ready.

2. Finely grate the pecorino cheese. Peel and chop the garlic and crumble the oregano. Toast the breadcrumbs with the olive oil in a pan until crispy and light brown. Stir in the garlic and oregano and transfer to a bowl.

3. Trim the chard stems and save them for another recipe (for example, chop them up, steam them, marinate them with anchovies, lemon, and olive oil, and serve them as an antipasto). Wash the chard leaves and boil them in a large pot of salted water for 4 minutes. Remove them from the water with a slotted spoon and place them in a colander. Cool briefly, then squeeze the water gently and cut into finger-width strips.

4. Cook the spaghetti in the chard water for 2 minutes less than the package tells you to. Ground the peppercorns or grind them very coarsely. Toast them in a large pan until the peppercorns are fragrant. Deglaze with two small ladles (my ladle holds just under 50 ml) of pasta water. Remove the spaghetti from the water with pasta tongs, add it to the pepper while still dripping wet, add two or three more ladles of cooking water, and gently finish cooking the pasta over medium heat.

5. Heat the chard and eggplant with the pasta until hot. Meanwhile, stir in the cheese with one or two ladles of pasta water until smooth. Stir into the spaghetti until everything is coated in a creamy layer. Sprinkle with two-thirds of the breadcrumbs—do not mix—and divide among plates and serve IMMEDIATELY. Serve with the remaining breadcrumbs on the side.

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