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Sicilian Caponata - Sweet and Sour Aubergine

Sicily's best-known vegetable dish, sweet and sour at once. Raisins provide the sweetness instead of sugar, capers and olives the seasoning instead of added salt. It tastes better on the second day than the first.

Sicilian Caponata - Sweet and Sour Aubergine

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Fry the aubergine cubes in a wide pan with two thirds of the olive oil over high heat, in batches, until golden, then lift them out. Not too many at once, or they steam instead of browning.
  2. Sweat onion and celery in the remaining oil for ten minutes - the celery should keep some bite.
  3. Add the tomatoes and cook down for ten minutes.
  4. Add olives, rinsed capers and raisins, then pour in the vinegar and let it evaporate uncovered for two minutes until the sharpness is gone.
  5. Return the aubergines to the pan and let everything sit together for five minutes. No salt is added - capers and olives bring enough.
  6. Take off the heat, fold in pine nuts and basil and leave overnight. Serve at room temperature, not hot.

Süßsauer ist arabisches Erbe

The pairing of vinegar and dried fruit came to Sicily with the Arabs and was called agrodolce there. It originally had a practical purpose: acid and sugar together preserve vegetables without refrigeration - which is why caponata really does taste better on the second day.

What is actually in it? Up-Food calculates over 30 nutrients for this recipe from the real ingredient amounts – based on verified USDA data, not estimates.

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