Caponata alla siciliana

Frankantipasti, Sicilia, summer36 Comments

Caponata alla sicliana

I have to admit, Sicilian food has always been something of a mystery to me. Many Sicilian dishes remind me of Angelina’s Campanian cooking—and Sicilians actually lay claim to melanzane alla parmigiana, one of her signature dishes—but there is something  ‘different’ about some of the taste combinations you’ll find in Sicilian cookery, especially the tendency to combine sweet and sour.

La caponata, one of the most famous Sicilian dishes, is a good example. A kind of southern cousin to the ratatouille of Provence, this dish stars eggplant, with celery co-starring and with tomato and onions in supporting roles, along with capers and olives, typically southern Italian flavor boosters. And, yes, it has a sweet-and-sour finishing touch that, if not overdone, perfectly balances out the flavors.

Ingredients

Serves 6 or more, as an antipasto or as part of a buffet

  • 1 kilo (2 lbs.) eggplant, cut into small cubes
  • 1 bunch of celery, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 large onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 small can of tomatoes or 250g (1/2 lb) fresh, skinned and seeded
  • Salt and pepper
  • A handful of capers
  • 250g (1/2 lb.) of green olives, pitted and halved
  • A sprig of fresh marjoram
  • Olive oil
  • Sugar and vinegar, to taste

Directions

The first step in this recipe, which is not absolutely necessary but a good idea, especially for larger, more mature eggplant, is to remove the excess liquid from the eggplant by sprinking the eggplant cubes with salt and placing them in a colander, with a small plate on top to exert some gentle pressure and one below to catch the eggplant liquid as it drains. Let the eggplant steep for an hour or more.

When you are ready to cook, gather up a handful of eggplant with a paper  towel, give it a gentle squeeze to dry the cubes, and throw them into abundant olive oil—about 1 cm (1/2 in) deep—in a large pot. (Enameled cast iron pots work particularly well.) Work in batches to avoid crowding the eggplant, removing them with a skimmer when the eggplant cubes are just lightly browned to a basket or bowl lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil.

When all your eggplant is done, there should be less oil in the pan, but still enough to cook with. Add the celery, sauté for a few minutes until the celery is tender but still has some ‘bite’ left in it. Season with salt and pepper as it cooks. Remove with a skimmer and set aside.

Now add the onion to the remaining oil in the pot and sauté it gently until it is quite soft. Add the tomato. Simmer the tomato until it has melted and reduced to a nice, sauce-like consistency.

Now add back your eggplant and celery, along with the capers, olives and the marjoram. Allow everything to simmer together for about 5-10 minutes. A minute or two before it’s done, add the sugar and vinegar, mix well (but gently!) and let it finish simmering. Turn off the heat and let the dish cool entirely before serving.

Caponata

Notes

There are two main points to watch out for when making caponata alla siciliana. First, depending on the quality of the eggplant, it may become very soft and, if it gets stirred too often or too vigorously, it will turn to mush. You should be very gingerly when mixing—a spatula will do a better job here than a spoon. It also helps to brown the eggplant over high heat; this way it will brown before getting too soft. The final simmering together of the ingredients should also last a few minutes. The initial steeping of the eggplant in salt also helps. Besides removing the often bitter natural liquids in the eggplant, it produces a firmer texture. Recipes vary as to how long you should leave them to drain; some call for several hours, but with most eggplant an hour will do. In fact, even 30 minutes will help. The size and age of the eggplant will determine how long you will need.  Smaller eggplant, by the way, tend to be firmer and are less needful of this initial step.

The other point is greasiness, since everything gets cooked in abundant oil. Now, of course, one person’s greasy is another person’s unctuousness, and this dish will never be fat-free. But if you want to lower the oilyness (and the calorie count) there are a few tricks. First, as mentioned, fry your eggplant at high heat, this will limit the amount of oil that the eggplant will absorb. Make sure to sop up the excess oil with paper towels. The same goes for the celery. And once the dish has cooled, if you find the resulting dish is a bit too rich for your taste, you can either skim the excess oil off with a spoon or even (as I did last night) strain the entire thing over a sieve for just a minute or two to allow the excess oil to drain off. By the way, most recipes for caponata alla siciliana will tell you to fry the eggplant and celery separately, and then sauté the onion in yet another pot. That strikes me as yet another way to wind up with a greasy dish;  my ‘one pot’ method works perfectly well and saves you some clean up afterwards.

Traditional recipes will tell you to de-string the celery and blanch it before sautéing, because in the old days celery was very strongly flavored and had tough filaments. Modern celery (at least here in the US) is raised to be almost ‘stringless’ and very mild in flavor. If in doubt, take a bite and see if these preliminaries are needed. The capers should be the kind packed in salt, in which case rinse them and, if they are very salty, you may want to soak them for a few minutes. But the kind packed in brine will do fine in a pinch. Of course, if you can find imported Sicilian capers, in particular the famous capperi di Pantelleria, that would be perfect. Since this is obviously a summer dish, fresh tomatoes rather than canned are traditional. But unless you are sure of the flavor and freshness of your tomatoes, to my mind canned is probably a better choice. I’ve also seen recipes with considerably less celery and/or tomato. Other recipes add tomato paste for a ‘redder’ version. In short, you can play with the proportions and ingredients—but whatever you do, the eggplant should always be the star of the show!

How much sugar and vinegar, you ask? Well, I tend not to measure, but a couple of spoonful of sugar along with a splash of the vinegar (I prefer the white wine variety) should do you fine. Add more if you want a more pronounced sweet and sour flavor, but I like just a hint.

Caponata is said to be of Spanish origin and, like many Italian dishes, has an interesting history, which you can read about here.

Caponata alla siciliana (Sicilian Eggplant Antipasto)

Rating: 51

Total Time: 2 hours

Serves 6 or more

Ingredients

  • 1 kilo (2 lbs.) eggplant, cut into small cubes
  • 1 bunch of celery, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 large onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 small can of tomatoes or 250g (1/2 lb) fresh, skinned and seeded
  • Salt and pepper
  • A handful of capers
  • 250g (1/2 lb.) of green olives, pitted and halved
  • A sprig of fresh marjoram
  • Olive oil
  • Sugar and vinegar, to taste

Directions

  1. The first step in this recipe, which is not absolutely necessary but a good idea, especially for larger, more mature eggplant, is to remove the excess liquid from the eggplant by sprinking the eggplant cubes with salt and placing them in a colander, with a small plate on top to exert some gentle pressure and one below to catch the eggplant liquid as it drains. Let the eggplant steep for an hour or more.
  2. When you are ready to cook, gather up a handful of eggplant with a paper towel, give it a gentle squeeze to dry the cubes, and throw them into abundant olive oil—about 1 cm (1/2 in) deep—in a large pot. (Enameled cast iron pots work particularly well.) Work in batches to avoid crowding the eggplant, removing them with a skimmer when the eggplant cubes are just lightly browned to a basket or bowl lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil.
  3. When all your eggplant is done, there should be less oil in the pan, but still enough to cook with. Add the celery, sauté for a few minutes until the celery is tender but still has some 'bite' left in it. Season with salt and pepper as it cooks. Remove with a skimmer and set aside.
  4. Now add the onion to the remaining oil in the pot and sauté it gently until it is quite soft. Add the tomato. Simmer the tomato until it has melted and reduced to a nice, sauce-like consistency.
  5. Now add back your eggplant and celery, along with the capers, olives and the marjoram. Allow everything to simmer together for about 5-10 minutes. A minute or two before it's done, add the sugar and vinegar, mix well (but gently!) and let it finish simmering. Turn off the heat and let your caponata cool entirely before serving.
https://memoriediangelina.com/2011/06/18/caponata-alla-siciliana/

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36 Comments on “Caponata alla siciliana”

  1. What’s the best way to preserve caponata for later use? I have an abundance of beautiful eggplants in my garden this year and I’d like to either freeze or can some of the caponata for winter.
    Thanks. Can’t wait to make this!!

  2. Yes to pignoli, yes to raisins, whole pitted green olives, (hold the tomato), serve warm plus sprinkle with toasted slivered almonds to finish … add sugar slowly and taste/adjust … love your blog!

  3. It tasted like it should but for some reason the skin of the eggplant were tough. I used a small eggplant from my yard and two that were Sicilian eggplants. I fried them till nice and brown. I soaked them in salt as recipe said. I would love to know why the skins would be tough, can you help me there…

  4. I’ve cooked Caponata in the past following a recipe I watched on TV which was performed by an italian chef on location in Sicily, this one had courgette which is cooked same way you cooked the celery (with the seeds removed from the core) and added to the mix toward the end to simmer with the rest of the ingredients in vinegar and sugar
    To remind myself with the cooking steps I had to look for a caponata recipe on the internet and that is when I found yours
    I wished chefs write recipes the same way you wrote yours, It is well structured and detailed followed with a couple of tips in making sure the end result is a perfect meal. Excellent work, will definitely look for more recipe on your site.
    mille grazie
    mohamed

  5. IO sono Siciliana e la caponata classica non l'ho mai fatta, perchè non la so fare, eh eh! Però di una cosa posso testimoniare: pinoli e noci non ci sono nella ricetta. Assolutamente no!
    Poi, per carità, ti sarà venuta deliziosa lo stesso, eh! Slurp 😛

  6. Fabulous recipe Frank! and as Ciao Chow Linda says, youve really nailed this recipe. it's one of my favorites and is always a hit at dinner parties. bummer that there are never any leftovers:)

  7. It appears to me you are quite proficient in Sicilian cooking as this dish looks and sounds amazing! After seeing this, I can hardly wait for our local farmer's markets to open and have eggplant. I'm new here and so glad to have found your great blog. I'll be looking around now…

  8. Thanks, folks, for all your lovely comments! It certainly is a tasty dish. I made this for a dinner party last week and it was a big hit. The only downside was, there were no leftovers to enjoy afterwards! 🙁

    @Arturo: Of course, I'd be honored!

    @Drick: See Winelady's comment just above yours—seems you can, indeed, roast the eggplant to cut down on the oil content. I'll have to try that next time and see how it goes!

  9. I understand what you're saying about Sicily. I love visiting Italy, but there's so much to see when there that going down to Sicily doesn't cross my mind. I still haven't experienced all that I want to experience in the north!

    That being said, after looking at this dish, I might have to rethink things. If we ever head that way again, maybe dipping south will be well worth it.

  10. the flavor must be incredible… I wonder, would roasting the veggies do as well? and interesting of the celery, I have not thought of the strings in years….

  11. One of my favorite childhood dishes is caponata. My sister and I still make it but we cut back on the oil by roasting the eggplant cubes. We then saute the rest of the ingredients. That way the final dish is not 'greasy' in the event the eggplant would soak up all the oil.

    Thanks for sharing this. It's really a very easy dish to prepare and can be served as an appetizer, or served over pasta which is how my friend likes to serve it.

    Joanne

  12. Caponata is one of my mom's signature dishes!!! I always ask her to make it whenever she comes here to visit!!! I LOVE it! True… Sicilian and Campanian cuisines are similar yet soooo different (if that makes sense ;-P)! You've done a great job!

  13. Your recipe sound wonderful. Both my mom and dads parents are Sicilian and my grandma's would make this dish alot. What I remember the most is the hugh loaf of crusty bread that went with it!!!! 🙂

  14. Simply an amazing recipe. I am usually stuck in the way I prepare eggplant. But your recipe has given more some inspiration to think outside the box! Grazie!
    albert grande
    Pizza Therapy

  15. Just in time for eggplant season– always looking for new ideas and this sounds delicious. Always love your posts– so informative and delicious sounding 🙂

  16. The word caponata always reminds me of Commissario Montalbano. I make my version in the summer, when both eggplant and tomatoes are available at the farmers' market. I hope to get to visit Sicily one day!

  17. Thanks, folks, for your kind comments!

    @Dianeuk: An interesting idea! I'll have to try it some time, always game for a new variation on the classics.

    @Pola: Right you are about the salting! I had completely forgotten to mention this first step of the recipe. It's become so automatic by now I I sometime don't even remember to mention it…

    @renaccio: A bit of anchovy sounds like a great addition, a bit of savoriness that goes very well with the olives and capers, I have to imagine!

  18. I love caponata and the first time I tasted it I couldn't get enough of those wonderful flavors. I've always used the recipe from the Tornabene's book “Sicilian Home Cooking”. They include anchovy in their recipe.
    When I was a catering in the US many people requested caponata and I was so happy to make it. I even saw little cans of it put out by Progresso!
    Now, as an americana living between Florence and Arezzo, naturally caponata is a foreign food to the locals but I still love it and make it every so often. My Florentine sig oth isn't all that crazy about it but I think it's b/c he's not a big eggplant fan. Agrodolce does show up in Tuscan recipes..such as coniglio and cinghiale dishes.
    I love Sicilian cuisine and I'm fascinated with the exotic flavor combinations used in their cooking. I spent more time in Sicily before I ended up here and my intro to the Italian kitchen was through Sicily..although in these parts they'd say that isn't italian. I love all the influences that make Sicilian cuisine what it is!

  19. Come mi piace la caponata! Seriously one of the best recipes ever invented! I love it.
    A trick to it, especially if the eggplants are not too good, is to salt the eggplants and let them render water for 30 min or so before rinsing them and cooking them. This extra step really does great things to the taste of this dish.

  20. I'm with you on the sweet and sour. I love eggplant parm (and, keep your recipe close!) and involtini and ratatouille. But, until last summer hadn't tried caponata because of the sweet and sour. Once I tried it, I was hooked!

  21. I have been experimenting with your recipe for pizza dolce and have come up with the addition of halved white seedless grapes stirred in before baking – very nice and gives lots of moisture…..As it is strawberry season I have also served it piled high with strawberries macerated in a little lemon and sugar.
    Now I guess it's off to the shops for some egg plant/ aubergine/ melanzane. Keep the recipes coming your blog is great source of inspiration and a great memory jogger.

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