The caponata is without any doubts the most típical dish of Sicily. Sicily is not only hosting some of Italy’s most beautiful beaches, but it is known as having one of the most delicious cuisine in the whole country.
Eggplants is the most characteristic vegetable of this Southern Italian region, you will find it in lots of dishes. It has been brought to the island by the arabs in the Middle Ages. We have already talked about eggplant parmigiana that is certainly one of my favourite meals, now let’s take a quick look at this Sicilian ratatouille.
Sicilian cooks and housewives adore using simple, genuine ingredients like eggplants, tomatoe or fresh basil (growing practically in all Sicilian gardens), and the mix of these ingredients will lead to such a harmony of flavours and perfumes that is typical of Sicily and that you will bring with yourself in your nose and in your heart also when leaving the island.
Caponata has several versions, someone like it with tuna fish, others with pine nuts or anchovy. You can make your own experiments and find tha veriosn that suits your taste best
But let’s see how the classical caponata is made:
Ingredients:
- 3 pieces of eggplant
- 500 gramms of celery
- 50 gramms of capers
- 100 gramms of pitted black olives
- 1 onion
- 6 tablespoon of tomatoe sauce
- 1 tablespoon of white vine vinegar
- salt
Cut the celery into small cubes and pour it to boiling water. Cut also the eggplant to cubes and start frzing them in a saucepan on extra virgin olive oil. Same applies for the chopped onions that you should fry in a separate saucepan. Then add the tomatoe to the onion and cook it until getting a dense sauce. Then add the celery and in the end, the eggplant cubes. If necessary, you can add some of the water that you used to cook the celery. In the end add the vinegar and the salt.
It should be served cold.
Caponata can be served as appetiyer, side dish, but we can just eat it simply spread on bread.
Buon appetito!