Caponata

• Chef: Andrea Golino

• Difficulty: Easy
• Time: 20 min of preparation, 20 min of cooking
• Type of Cooking: Baked

• Doses for: 20 people

Ingredients

• 2 aubergines
• 1 celery stick
• 1/2 white onion
• 1 handful of pitted olives
• 1 handful of salted capers
• 100 g of cherry tomatoes
• 30 g of raisins
• 30 g of chopped pistachios
• 30 g of sugar
• 20 g of raspberry vinegar
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 100 g of dark chocolate chips

Tip

An exuberant, rich, substantial dish: it is the perfect metaphor of Sicilian cuisine, with that bittersweet flavor that drives me crazy. When there were no refrigerators, this was one of the ways to store vegetables, using vinegar, sugar and oil as preservatives. In this finger version, I combine the Sicilian tradition with a Campania recipe, that of eggplants with chocolate. The cutting of the vegetables is very important: it must be homogeneous otherwise the cooking will not be uniform, some will burn others will remain raw.

Preparation

1. We cut the onion and the celery rib into browns and fry them in a pan with a couple of spoons of oil. We make cubes from the walls of the unpeeled aubergines, leaving the innermost part of the pulp for other preparations, which would absorb too much oil in cooking.
2. We do not want the aubergines to be too greasy, so we season them with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and cook them in the oven for about twenty minutes, until they are golden brown.
3. Add the olives and capers to the onion, brown and add the aubergines. In another pan, sauté the cherry tomatoes split in half with a drizzle of oil, salt and pepper over high heat, then add them to the rest.
4. It’s time to give character to our caponata: let’s combine the raisins, the sugar and the vinegar, give it a nice mix and finish with two other aromas typical of Sicilian cuisine, the chopped basil and the grated orange zest.
5. Let it rest and cool down, the flavors must mix.
6. At the moment of serving, we serve, covering with a handful of chocolate chips and sprinkling the plate with chopped pistachios.