How to Make Caponata for Every Season

Michael Vincent Ferreri grew up in a big Sicilian family in Rochester, New York. Celebratory meals back then meant tables groaning with red-sauced pasta, massive hunks of meat, salads, roasted vegetables, and always, always a big jar of eggplant caponata.

Now he’s the chef of Res Ipsa Cafe in Philadelphia, and that same eggplant caponata returns to his menu every year as soon as local farmers harvest their globe-shaped Sicilian eggplants. The recipe, handed down from his great grandmother, remains unchanged. It’s a dish that’s true, he says, to a central tenet of Sicilian cuisine: “Go to the market, see what looks good, and perform the least amount of intervention possible.”

As eggplant season fades, though, Ferreri applies the same concept to fall, winter, and then spring variations of the recipe, just as Sicilian cooks do. “In fall, [Sicilians] usually do a root vegetable. In winter, they have a caponata with celery, pomegranate, almonds, and mint. In springtime, artichoke caponata with chopped peas is popular,” says Ferreri, whose current menu includes a caponata made with squash, dates, walnuts, and pickled onions. And while caponata can be quite simple, Ferrari’s riffs follow his fancy. He has served a mushroom and beet version with red onion, pine nuts, honey, vinegar, celery, and lemon-thyme sabayon, as well as celery root caponata with Moroccan black olive caramel, shaved fennel, onion, sesame seeds, and celery root purée.

Peak season produce and texture are among caponata’s constants, as is an agrodolce backbone—that is, the sweet-and-sour combination that’s achieved with a mix of vinegar, honey, and/or fruit. Sicilian food, explains Ferreri, just isn’t complete without agrodolce. The idea is “that you have to emulate life in food—sweet and bitter, or sweet and sour. Everyone has those life experiences, but Sicilians are the only people with a name for it and a strict dogma for using it in their food,” says Ferreri.

Caponata gets to the heart of Sicilian cooking, and whether it’s high concept and designed for a restaurant menu or made at home for family and friends, the same principles apply: balance, simplicity, seasonality. You needn't feel limited by a recipe; the only thing you can do wrong is to use inferior produce or throw in too many spices that muddy the flavor. “Caponata isn’t a strict thing,” says Ferreri. “It’s an idea.”

Wondering how to make caponata in any season? Here's your roadmap.

1. Start with a few pristine vegetables

Go with whatever looks great at the farmers' market, considering the balance of texture, color, and flavor. “Don’t overthink it,” says Ferreri. “Everything that grows together will taste really good together.”

2. Add fresh or dried fruit

While recipes sometimes call for raisins, Ferreri might add apples or quince in fall and cherries in spring. He often grills the fruit to caramelize its sugars “so it doesn’t eat like a fruit salad.”

3. Prepare each component separately

You can leave some of the produce raw and blanch, grill, or sauté other ingredients. Try steaming potatoes, or including roasted butternut squash in the fall. (Try shaving some into raw squash ribbons, too.) The goal is for each ingredient to taste distinct in the final product. Cut or slice each ingredient so that you’ll be able to eat a composed bite of everything all at once.

4. Make sure there’s some crunch

Vary the texture by adding crunchy raw vegetables or toasted nuts.

5. Get sweet and sour

Prepare an agrodolce dressing with olive oil and honey, plus vinegar or tart citrus. Taste as you go. You can start with about 1/2 cup each of oil and vinegar, along with 2 tablespoons of honey, but you may need to add a bit more acidity or sweetness depending on your vinegar and what sort of fruit you use.

6. Let it hang

Mix everything together, but don't worry about serving it immediately. If you let the caponata rest for a few hours, the flavors melt together nicely.

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Originally Appeared on Epicurious