Campari Caponata – Sicilian “sweet & sour”

Anyone who follows what I do is probably aware that I have a huge love affair with Italian cuisine- this is where I marry that with my similar love of tomatoes, lol

The Campari tomatoes we’re producing at Village Farms are particularily sweet and put out a ton of juice, so I tend to use those as the base to my caponata- they make for a very light and fresh base sauce…

Fresh Italian parsley is critical…

Caponata is all about celery and eggplant, and the sweet & sour combination of tomatoes and vinegar, augmented by olives, capers, sweet onion and raisins, depending on what region you’re in…

Once it’s partially cooked down I feed it raw diced mini San Marzano tomatoes, which are super meaty and hold great texture in the mix…

I like to use a blend of both dried and fresh oregano in y version, because I think they both impart their own unique flavours, much as I tend to use a nice olive oil in both the cooking stage, and raw to finish with…

Here I chose to serve it as an entree, and simply spoon it over a grilled slab of eggplant, finished with Ricotta Salata (salted Ricotta)

Also being a pretty big lover of olive oil, I tend to have the tomato sauce in the finished product so laden with EVOO that it breaks like a vinaigrette- this time I used Domenica Fiore’s Novello – that’s living like a king, lol…