Sicilian · Side
Caponata Catanese
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with a briny, maritime salinity, acid holding everything up to the light, lifted green at the very end.
Ingredients
- 900g aubergine, cut in 3cm cubes
- 20g fine salt, for degorging
- 200g inner celery stalks, sliced 1cm
- 150g white onion, sliced
- 400g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 100g Nocellara green olives, pitted and torn
- 50g salted capers, rinsed and soaked 10 minutes
- 40g pine nuts
- 40g sultanas
- 60ml white wine vinegar
- 30g caster sugar
- 500ml sunflower oil, for frying
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- a large handful of basil leaves
The skills inside
Draining fried food: a rack, never paperSalted water & the float testSalting to draw the water out
Allergen screen
Found: nuts · celery
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Salt the aubergine in a colander for 45 minutes, until brown beads stand on the cut faces, then rinse and press dry in a cloth until the cubes squeak. 45 min
- Fry them in 180C (355F) oil in small batches for about 4 minutes, until mahogany and floating, and drain on a rack rather than paper so they stay crisp. 4 min
- In the olive oil, cook the celery 5 minutes until it turns from raw green to olive but still snaps, add the onion until translucent, then the tomatoes, olives, capers, pine nuts and sultanas and simmer 10 minutes until no water runs at the pan edge. 5 min
- Raise the heat until the pan hisses, pour the vinegar and sugar in together and boil hard for 60 seconds, until the sharp smell drops away and the surface turns glossy.
- Fold the aubergine back in off the heat, tear in the basil, and leave it at room temperature for at least 4 hours; it is not finished until it is cool. 240 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Salting to draw the water out 41 recipes
- Salted evenly over every surface rather than tipped on in one place and tossed once.
- Laid out so the water has somewhere to go: a colander, a rack, or a sieve over a bowl, never a flat dish where it sits back in what it gave up.
- Given real time, and there is visible liquid to show for it: a pool underneath, a drip, or a wrung handful.
- That liquid is removed. It is squeezed, blotted or poured away, and the food is dry to the touch before it goes anywhere near heat.
- The dish is seasoned knowing salt has already gone on, tasted before any more is added.
Where it goes wrong It went into the dish still wet, and was salted again out of habit. The water it was carrying dilutes and steams whatever it meets, so the result is watery and over-seasoned at once, and those are two faults that cannot be corrected in the same direction.
Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes
- The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
- It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
- Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
- A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
- Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.
Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Chianti Classico or Barbera d’Alba
- Also Right
- Vermentino for the lighter plates
- From the Taps
- Italian pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- San Pellegrino Sanbittèr
Tomato’s acid demands equal acid: Italian reds evolved beside the sauce, and the regional pairing is the safest law in wine.
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