10 May 2009

Caponata di melanzane

Today I cooked a big family dinner. Yesterday we did our shopping at the special chicken shop, butchers, organic shop and market at St-Gilles.

For starters we had raw vegetables, toasts with shrimp salad and blinis with smoked salmon and fish eggs.
After that another chicken broth.
Main course was meat loaf, served with baked potatoes, tomato sauce and caponata.
The potatoes were grenailles from the market. I didn't peel them but washed them, then cut them in 2-3 pieces if necessary, steamed them for 7 min, then baked them at 200° C with olive oil, rosemary, pepper and a lot of salt.
The tomato sauce was just tomato, dried basil, pepper and salt. It simmered for a long time and then we passed it through a sieve.

The caponata is from Lorenza de' Medici's 'ITALY The beautiful cookbook'.

Serves 6-8

6 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and sliced in rings
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
3 peppers, yellow and red, sliced in rings
500 g aubergines, peeled and diced
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp oregano
2 tbsp capers
100 g black olives
3 anchovy fillets, chopped

Heat olive oil, add onion and garlic and fry for a while. Add peppers and aubergines and fry for 15 min on medium heat. Add tomatoes and oregano and let this simmer until peppers and aubergines are cooked. Stir regularly.
Add capers, olives and anchovy and remove from the heat. Add pepper and salt and let the caponata stand for a few hours.

As usual, I'll add photos later if I find the time ;-)