I’m just not totally in love with eggplant.  I like it okay… it’s done a good job for me in stir frys and roasted vegetable dishes. Regular supermarket eggplant you can keep, because whenever I see a recipe for it, it indicates that you should salt it and soak it and peel it and, well, it’s just too much hassle for a vegetable that doesn’t taste like much.  I think that’s my problem with it, it doesn’t taste like much.  This year, since I planted Asian eggplants, I was able to use them in a variety of ways, easily- meaning no peeling and no soaking.  They were sweet right off the vine, which made them perfect for a weeknight meal.  Except that I’m just not loving the little cousin of the tomato.

But this recipe, this Caponata is one use for eggplant that I can totally get behind.   If you’ve never had caponata, it’s a taste treat all by itself.  It’s sort of a relish, sort of a salad, and sort of a chutney.  Sometimes it’s eaten as is, sometimes it’s eaten as a condiment.  Sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s cold.  One thing that it is always, is delicious.  It’s tangy, sweet and earthy all at once, and I just love it.  The recipe I use as my guideline is from Giada De Laurentiis and her first cookbook Everyday Italian.  When I popped open the book to make it this year with the last of my purple Ping Tung eggplant, I knew a few changes were in order.

First, 1/4 cup of oil was excessive.  I used my nonstick skillet and a drizzle of oil equal to maybe a teaspoon.  Secondly, it seemed really silly to me to open up a can of diced tomatoes when I had a bowl full of garden-fresh tomatoes at my disposal.  So I diced up about 3 of those to measure 14 ounces.  I left out the capers, since I didn’t have any.  I contemplated chopping up a dill pickle instead, but decided to just leave it as is.  By using the fresh tomatoes, it did take a little longer for my caponata to thicken up, but other than that, this was just as tasty this time as I remember it being the last time.  In fact, even better, because I grew everything except the celery.  Shoot, now that I think about it, I do have celery in the garden, this would have been a great time to sample a stalk! I had planned on eating this as an accompaniment to pita chips or crackers, but by golly if I haven’t just been eating it by the spoonful.  I prefer it on the warm side, but even cold out of the fridge it tastes fantastic.  And if you know me, you know how much I hate eating hot food cold out of the fridge.  So this caponata really is something special, and you should really try it before the eggplant are gone this year.

Do use the tender small Asain eggplants if you can find some- they totally make this dish.

Caponata