Corzetti Stampati with Eggplant, Olives, and Fresh Ricotta

Years ago my friend Paul Schrade gave me a wooden pasta stamp, which I never used. Since I’m a baker, I occasionally thought about using it to make a pretty cookie, but I never thought to use it for its intended use: to imprint corzetti stampati, or “stamped coins.” Then about a year after Mozza opened, when I’d run out of projects to nudge Matt about, I broke out the stamp and told Matt to get to work. Rather than follow the traditional Genoese route of serving corzetti with green beans, potatoes, and pesto, Matt came up with a version of Pasta alla Norma—Sicily’s most famous pasta dish that combines tomato sauce, eggplant, and sheep’s milk ricotta—using the corzetti in place of the spaghetti or penne traditionally used. We use Japanese eggplant and slice it into medallions, which work really nicely with the flat “coins.” No Italian in his right mind would ever take a shape from Genoa and toss it with a sauce from Sicily, but that’s one of the advantages of being American. Though we try to be respectful of tradition, we are not bound by it. Think of it as Italian fusion—and enjoy.