Caponata siciliana or augergine in sweet and sour sauce

Caponata is a mixture of fried vegetables, mainly aubergines, with a sweet and sour sauce of tomatoes, onio, celery, capers and olives. There different variatios of caponata, with different ingredients. In addition to eggplant caponata or mixed vegetables do caponata with peppers, artichokes, potatoes and you can add pine nuts, almonds or raisins. It is served as an antipasto or side dish.

This is the recipe of augergine in sweet and sour sauce

Ingredients; 2 augergines; 2 celery sticks; 3 carrots; 1onion; 150 gr basic tomato sauce; 10 pitted white olives; 2 tablespoons capers; 100 gr roasted almonds; 100 gr raisins;2 tablespoons honey; 1small bunch of basil, extra virgin olive oil; red wine vinegar, salt, pepper

Dice the aubergines and then fry it with a very small amount of oil, in a non-stick pan. Dice the celery and carrots and finely chop the onion then fry the onion in a little oil , before adding the celery and carrots. Once the vegetables are golden, add the basic tomato sauce and some basil leaves, and complete cooking for approximately 8 or 10 minutes.  At this point add the fried aubergines, salt, pepper, capers, olives, raisins, almonds, honey and vinegar. Evaporate the vinegar and let caramelize.

You very often find caponata on the Sicilian tables. Its variants with mixed greens, peppers or potatoes are also found in traditional recipes in other regions of Italy, often with other names such as “peperonata” in Calabria or “fricandò” in Marche.

A delicious recipe is the caponata with octopus. In this variant, after preparing the sauce with celery and onion joins the tomato sauce, basil, olives, capers, pine nuts and raisins, then red wine vinegar sweetened with sugar and then boiled octopus and eggplant fried chunks. You can also add artichokes cutted into wedges and fried. For the caponata with potatoes instead is well do not forget to add a pinch of red pepper.

here is the link to the italian recipe of caponata

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