Caponata with seafood
6 servings
25 minutes
Caponata is the same ratatouille. Sicilian matrons prepare it by putting kilograms of eggplants, tomatoes and other vegetables in one pan, and the result is irresistible. But a Michelin chef is interested in bringing each ingredient separately to the ideal stage, and Nino Graziano makes a kind of caponata constructor.
1
Blanch medium-sized tomatoes in boiling water and peel them. Cut each into six to eight wedges, removing all the seeds from them — a wedge will remain with a petal thickness of about 4 mm depending on the meatiness of the tomato.
- Tomatoes: 6 pieces
2
Spread the petals on a baking sheet, season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with sugar, orange zest, and thyme leaves, then drizzle with olive oil. Place the baking sheet in a preheated oven at 90 degrees. After three hours, you will have wonderful confit tomatoes.
- Salt: to taste
- Ground black pepper: to taste
- Sugar: 3 teaspoons
- Orange zest: 1 tablespoon
- Thyme: 6 stems
- Extra virgin olive oil: 150 ml
3
Pour coarse salt into a small dish and place a whole onion in its skin, so that it is submerged in the salt by an inch or two. Put it in an oven preheated to 140 degrees for an hour. The finished onion will be very soft and aromatic, but not boiled.
- Sea salt: 200 g
- Onion: 1 head
4
Peel the celery stalks from the tough skin and cut them diagonally into pieces about one centimeter thick. Drop them into boiling water for three to four minutes and immediately transfer them with a slotted spoon to ice water to keep the celery bright green and crunchy.
- Celery: 2 stems
5
Slice the eggplants into disks about two centimeters thick, then cut them into three to four wedges. Remove the corners of the sponge-like insides. Heat a little olive oil in a pan and fry the eggplants on all sides until they have a nice golden-brown crust.
- Eggplants: 2 pieces
- Extra virgin olive oil: 150 ml
6
Cut the tentacles of the boiled octopus into pieces about seven centimeters long and fry them in oil with the langoustines for three to four minutes. If you bought a whole raw octopus weighing 1.5–2 kg, you need to boil it in unsalted water with an onion, a celery stalk, and a glass of white wine for about one to one and a half hours, covered.
- Octopus: 600 g
- Langoustines: 6 pieces
- Onion: 1 head
- Celery: 2 stems
7
Prepare the sauce: pour olive oil into the pan, add pine nuts, capers, and the flesh cut from the olives. Fry for a minute, add two tablespoons of sugar, and cook, stirring, until the nuts are coated in caramel. Add vinegar and acacia honey. Let the sauce simmer for another two to three minutes.
- Extra virgin olive oil: 150 ml
- Pine nuts: 3 teaspoons
- Capers: 3 teaspoons
- Olive: 12 pieces
- Sugar: 3 teaspoons
- White wine vinegar: 80 ml
- Acacia honey: 2 tablespoons
8
Arrange the vegetables on plates: first the eggplants, then the confit tomato petals and the salt-baked onion. Scatter celery and pieces of octopus around, placing the langoustine in the center. If you complete all the steps quickly, all the ingredients will still be warm.
- Eggplants: 2 pieces
- Tomatoes: 6 pieces
- Onion: 1 head
- Celery: 2 stems
- Octopus: 600 g
- Langoustines: 6 pieces
9
Water the caponata with honey dressing and it's ready to serve. Unlike the classic caponata made in one dish, this one will be bright, colorful, and varied in texture — and just as tasty.
- Acacia honey: 2 tablespoons