Couscous Salad

Creamy Cucumber Soup

Tomato Salad

Italian Pasta Salad

Summer Fruit Crisp

Broccoli Salad

Summer Squash Casserole

Spicy Cashew Nuts

Caponata   from Tanya Miller

This Sicilian dish varies from one house to another: each hostess/cook has her own recipe, her own secret, thus there is no “right way” or “wrong way” to make it.
Here is my way:

Ingredients:

Nine small Italian eggplants
Three large Spanish onions
Bunch of fresh crisp celery
About 12 oz of tomato paste
About three table spoons of sugar
Cup of capers (rinse it first)
Cup of chopped pitted olives (black or green, or a combination)
Cup of toasted pine nuts
Cup of raisins (could be soaked in water, or left alone if soft)
Bunch of flat Italian parsley
Bunch of cilantro
About 20 leaves of fresh basil
Half a cup of red wine vinegar (I used cherry vinegar)
A splash of rose wine
Salt, pepper
Olive oil for sautéing

Preparation:

1) Cube eggplants, set in a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave alone for about an hour.

2) Meanwhile: chop the celery and sauté until somewhat soft, but not mushy, for several minutes; put in a bowl to rest.

3) Next, add some more oil in a pan and sauté eggplant (previously rinsed and pat-dry with towel) – for about twenty minutes, until ready; remove from the pan with the slatted utensil leaving the oil in a pan.

4) Next, sauté the onions until golden: about ten, twelve minutes.

While onions are sautéing, wash, gently dry and carefully chop the basil and cilantro. Set aside.

5) Next, add the tomato puree, sugar, vinegar and wine into onions and mix all together until well integrated.

6) Next, put the celery and eggplant into this mass, folding it in carefully.

Taste for salt: it is essential to put enough salt to set off the sugary mix of tomato paste, wine and sugar.

7) Next, add the chopped olives, capers, pine nuts and raisins.

8) Next, add chopped parsley, chopped basil and chopped cilantro.

(One has to remember to handle cilantro briefly and carefully: it bruises easily)

9) Fold it all in, turning several times, adding more salt until it tastes “agro-dolce” – sweet and sour and salty.
Add pepper.

Now the Caponata has to cool – overnight is possible – and then put into the fridge for another several hours.

In Italy it is usually served at room temperature, as soon as it cools, but I personally prefer it straight from the fridge – especially when on top of a piece of German Rye.

Caponata is served by itself as an appetizer, or a side dish – usually with swordfish or any other firm-fleshed fish, of, as I’ve discovered, it goes exceptionally well with the lamb, in a variety of recipes.