Recipe courtesy of Mary Ann Esposito (ciaoitalia.com).
I spoke with my friend Mary Ann Esposito, who has one of the longest-running cooking programs Ciao Italia in America. I asked her for a recipe she liked. She gave me this one for my book Great Italian American Food in New England. Caponata can be used for many things, like on fish or tossed into pasta.
Ingredients
- 8 eggplants (4 to 5 inches long), washed, trimmed, and cut into 1-inch cubes.
- 1 cup tomato paste (use a good brand like Mutti)
- Coarse sea salt
- ½ cup capers in wine vinegar, drained
- 1¼ cups thinly sliced celery (about 2 ribs)
- 1 cup drained and chopped green or black olives in brine
- 1½ cups boiling water
- ½ cup sugar
- 1½ cups peanut oil
- ⅔ cup red wine vinegar
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons baking cocoa
- 4 onions, thinly sliced (3½ cups)
- Freshly ground pepper to taste
Preparation
Place eggplant cubes in a colander, salt them, and let them sweat in the sink for 1 hour, then rinse and dry them.
Add the celery to the boiling water in a small saucepan and cook for 3 or 4 minutes. Drain the celery, save the water and set it aside.
Heat half the peanut oil in a large skillet or electric frying pan. Add the eggplant pieces and fry until softened and lightly browned, about 12 -15 minutes. Drain the pieces on brown paper and continue with the remaining eggplant and peanut oil.
In the same skillet, heat the olive oil, add the onions, and saute until soft and glazed-looking, about 10 minutes. Lower the heat and mix in tomato paste, reserved celery water, olives, capers, sugar, vinegar, and cocoa. Mix well and let the mixture simmer for about 5 minutes.
Add the eggplant and the celery pieces to the skillet and mix well to coat the pieces with the sauce. Simmer the mixture uncovered for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Because this recipe makes a lot, I spoon the mixture into jars, cover, store some in the refrigerator and freeze the rest. Use as needed. You may want to cut this recipe in half, although this caponata never lasts long in my house.
