Melanzane a scapece (Marinated Eggplant)

Frank2 August 2018Naples and Campania, sides/contorno, starters/antipasti63 Comments

Melanzane a spapece (Marinated Eggplant)

In Neapolitan cookery, the term scapece generally refers to an ancient method for preserving fish or vegetables. The main ingredient is generally fried in olive oil and marinated with garlic, mint and vinegar. We’ve already featured zucchini a scapece, perhaps the best known of this class of dishes.

Today’s scapece recipe from Francesconi’s La cucina napoletana, on the other hand, treats the eggplant a bit differently. Rather than being fried, it’s boiled until tender, then marinated in abundant olive oil, garlic, oregano, red pepper and a surprisingly small amount of vinegar. This alternative method takes full advantage of eggplant’s affinity for olive oil, but the pre-boiling ensures it doesn’t soak it up like a sponge, as raw eggplant is wont to do when it’s fried or sautéed.

The result is a dish that’s lighter and less tart than the usual scapece, while every bit as tasty. Perhaps tastier, in fact, if my experience is any guide. Marinated eggplant is usually served as an appetizer, but when I made it the other day I ate so much it wound up as dinner, together with a nice chunk of crusty bread and a piece of fruit afterwards.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer

1 kilo small eggplant
Salt

For the marinade:

250ml (1 cup) olive oil
3-4 Tbs white wine vinegar, or more to taste
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
A pinch of oregano
A pinch of red pepper flakes, or more to taste
Salt, to taste

For topping:

Minced parsley
More red pepper flakes

Directions

Trim off the stems of the eggplant and, depending on their size, cut them into quarters or halves (or thick slices, see Notes).

Bring a big pot of well-salted water to the boil and drop in the eggplant pieces. Boil until tender but not mushy.

Meanwhile, mix the marinade ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Taste for seasoning. If you think it needs it, add more salt, red pepper and/or vinegar to get the taste you like. The mixture should be very savory but not overwhelming.

When the eggplant is tender, remove to a colander and let drain and cool off. When the eggplant is cool enough to handle, gently squeezing out any excess liquid with a paper towel, lay the pieces out in a baking dish or other shallow receptacle.

Spoon the marinade over the eggplant. It should not quite cover the pieces. Marinate for at least 2-3 hours.

Serve the eggplant, if you like sprinkled with minced parsley and additional red pepper flakes for color and piquancy. Perhaps a light sprinkling of salt, too, if it needs it.

Notes on Marinated Eggplant “Scapece” Style

Francesconi’s recipe calls for “small” eggplants, but she probably didn’t have in mind the beautiful baby eggplants I found in the farmers market last weekend. Her recipe calls for cutting the eggplants in quarters and boiling them for 20 minutes. These guys needed only to be cut in half and were perfectly tender after only 5 minutes’ boiling.

You can adjust the recipe to suit the size of the eggplants you have on hand. I bet it might even work for standard sized eggplant; I’d slice them horizontally into thick rounds and proceed from there, boiling them probably no more than 5-10 minutes.

Compared with your typical scapece, the taste of this marinade is not very tart, which I quite like—and here I’ve upped the amount of vinegar a bit from Francesconi’s original recipe. If you enjoy tart flavors, of course you can add even more vinegar. In fact, a few drops of vinegar just before serving would add a pleasant kick, I would think.

Francesconi rather sternly warns that one shouldn’t eat the eggplant any earlier than the next day, but that may depend on the type of eggplant you’re using. These baby eggplants were perfectly delicious after only a couple of hours. In any event, they’ll keep for up to a week. Remember that the scapece marinade was originally a way of preserving in the days before refrigeration. But if you do refrigerate them, remember to bring them back to room temperature before serving.

Of course, eggplant can also be made following the same technique you would use for zucchini a scapece: frying eggplant slices and pouring over a marinade of vinegar, garlic and fresh mint, with no additional oil needed.

A Note for Regular Readers

You may have noticed this post came out earlier than usual this week. And very likely you won’t be seeing a new post next week. Yours truly will be on vacation—in Sicily! The main reason for the trip is a family wedding, but needless to say, I have a long list of delicacies I’m planning on trying. Some of them might even wind up on these pages when I get back. Wait and see…

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