We’re making Caponata, one of Sicily’s most beloved dishes — a sweet and savory eggplant recipe that’s perfect as an appetizer, side dish, or even on its own with crusty Italian bread.
This version brings together fried Italian eggplant, celery, onion, tomato, green olives, capers, and toasted pignoli — all simmered with a rich agrodolce (sweet and sour) sauce made with tomato paste, sugar, and red wine vinegar.
The result? Taking simple ingredients and transforming them into an amazing dish.
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Ingredients
4 Italian eggplants, cubed
Neutral oil, for frying
½ large onion, sliced
2 celery stalks, chopped
Olive oil, for sautéing
3 vine or roma tomatoes, chopped
⅓ cup green olives, pitted and chopped
2 tbsp capers, rinsed
2 tbsp toasted pignoli
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper q.b.
Fresh basil, for finishing
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
Directions
Cube the eggplant and fry in neutral oil, at about 350 degrees, until golden on all sides. Transfer to a paper towel–lined dish and set aside.
In a large pan, heat olive oil and sauté sliced onion and celery until soft and translucent, about 10-12 minutes.
Stir in the chopped tomatoes and cook for 3–4 minutes until they start to break down.
Add olives, capers, and toasted pignoli. Lower the heat and let it all cook gently for about 15–20 minutes.
In a small bowl, combine tomato paste, sugar, and red wine vinegar to create a sweet and sour mix. Stir this into the pan and let the vinegar cook off and the tomato paste deepen in color, about 3-4 minutes.
Add the fried eggplant, toss gently, and remove from the heat. Finish with fresh basil.
Let cool to room temperature or chill in the fridge. Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and more basil . Pair it with breadsticks Italian bread, taralli, or flatbread
Today we’re going to be making eggplant caponado, which is one of my favorite dishes to put out for a big auntie basto spread. Anything eggplant, you’ve got me hooked. It’s sweet, it’s savory, it’s tangy, and I think in Italian cooking, it’s the perfect example of how you can take simple ingredients and transform them into an amazing dish. Now, every family has their own way of making it, but today I’m going to show you how I make mine. [Music] So, the first thing we have to get started on is our eggplant. This is the star of the show and one of the main components of the dish. Going to chop the ends off here. Then slice down the middle once again and then just make big cubes here. Now, this is a fairly rustic dish, so all of the ingredients, we’re not really chopping them finely. And these eggplant, once I get finished with them, we’ll fry them nice and golden brown. And then we’ll add them later into the mixture that we built. [Music] So, I’ve got my eggplant all chopped up now, and now it’s time to fry. Okay, we’re going to work in batches here, trying not to overcrowd the pan too much. This is just a neutral oil that I’ve got to about 350°. And we’ll fry these until they’re beautifully golden brown. So, after a couple of minutes, look at this. Beautifully perfect golden brown. I’m going to take these out and just drain them on a dish lined with some paper towels. And then we will get started working on our next batch. All summer long, we had eggplants and tomatoes growing in the garden outside of the restaurant. My uncle Louie has the greenest of green thumbs and he built a little garden outside of the restaurant. So all summer long we had fresh eggplant and fresh tomatoes growing and it was the perfect way to utilize those and make a couple minutes of frying. These look perfect. I’m going to take these out just as before. We’re going to put these on the side so we can get started working on the base for our caponado. We are going to need an onion and celery to get things kicked off here. So, this is a fairly big onion. I’m just going to cut this in half. And as I said before, very much of a rustic dish. So, nothing really needs to be too finely chopped. So, in our pan, we’ll throw in a little bit of olive oil here. And then we’ll just go in with our onion. And then some celery. That goes in the pan there. We’re just going to work to sweat these down. Get them nice soft and translucent. So, because of that, I’m not looking for any color. I’m going to add some salt now and a little bit of freshly ground pepper. Give these all a toss. So, the salt here will obviously add flavor, but it will also draw out the moisture from the onions and the celery, really helping this become soft and translucent. We’re not looking for any browning. Just want to cook this down. So, in the meantime, as I let this go, we’ll start working on our tomatoes. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] This will probably go about 10 to 12 minutes, really cook down, and we’ll come back and we’ll add our tomatoes at that point. These are looking perfect. They’ve cooked down just to where I want them. And now we’ll throw in our tomatoes. Quick stir up here. And again, building the the seasoning. Little pinch of salt, little pepper. And we’ll let these go. Just like the celery and the onions, they’ll cook down for a few minutes. Okay, our tomatoes are looking good. And here we’re going to add some other components to the dish to really build this out. Now we’ve got some green olives here. I’ll sprinkle these around. We’ve got some capers. And we’ve got some toasted pioli nuts. We’ll sprinkle those. Give this a good toss. [Applause] This looks beautiful. So now I’m going to drop down the heat, let it go low and slow for about another 20 minutes, and then we’ll come back and we’ll start working on our agraul. So after about 15 to 20 minutes, this is what it’s going to look like. So we’re almost there. But when you think of capona, right, you think of the sweet and tangy part. And that’s what we’re going to start building now. So, what I like to do though is build this with a little tomato paste. It’s going to add really nice flavor and depth to the dish. So, when you think of the sweetness, now we’re going to add some sugar to this. And then some red wine vinegar. And that’s going to be the tangy part. Right? So aggraulce means sweet and sour. Sugar is our sweet. Red wine vinegar is our sour. Let’s get that mixed here together. Little more vinegar. Then we’ll add that right into the pan here. Give this a good sauce. We’ll just let the tomato paste cook down and the vinegar kind of cook off. This will be for a couple minutes. Look at how beautifully this is coming together. I’m not done. But even though this is a Sicilian dish, it’s still one of my favorites. And now time to add in our fried eggplant. Put all of that in. Give this a nice toss. That looks perfect. I’ll shut the heat off now. And look at how beautiful that is. So, at this point, I just want to check the seasoning. Right, we added some salty capers and some olives. So, I’m going to taste it to see where I’m at, whether I need more salt, maybe a little more pepper. Very good. We’re going to add a pinch more salt. But you can taste this the sweet and sour element, right? So that sugar that we added, the red wine vinegar, this looks good. Now throw in some beautiful fresh basil. And this will add just a great fresh bite to the dish. Oh, look at how good that looks. That’s perfect. That’s exactly what we want. Now, caponada is typically served either at warm temperature or chilled. So, we’re going to put this on the side. We’ll come back to it later and we’ll finish off the dish. This has come to room temperature and now I’m just going to put the finishing touches on it by drizzling a little bit more extra virgin olive oil here and then topping it off with some more fresh basil. And that’s it. My version of eggplant capanada. I love to serve this alongside some bread sticks, some Italian bread, flatbread, taralei, pretty much anything you got on hand, you can throw out on the table, put it right next to this, and everybody will love this. If you like this video or you like the recipe, make sure to subscribe and follow along for more classic Italian
2 Comments
Excellent!!!
Super amazing👍😍😍🤩 yummy😋😋😋