It’s getting cold, isn’t it? The weather is meant to be great tomorrow, but we’re not holding our breath. More like we’re seeing our breath (okay- we’ll stop making dad jokes and/or talking about the weather). As we see the chilly evenings creeping in, we thought we’d give you a recipe to both keep you busy of an evening, and make you all warm and full of delicious dinner. Read more…
‘Caponata is a Sicilian dish of aubergine and other vegetables, cut into cubes and deep-fried, then mixed with sultanas and pine nuts, and marinated in an agrodolce (sweet-and-sour) sauce. In some parts of Sicilia, it is traditional to mix in little pieces of dark bitter chocolate. Because it is such a Southern dish, I had never even tasted it until I started cooking at Olivio. Then, one day when we were looking for something sweet and sour as an accompaniment, I found the recipe in a book and I remember thinking: ‘This will never work!’ But we made it, the explosion of flavour was brilliant, and has become one of my favourite things. You can pile caponata on chunks of bread, or serve it with mozzarella or fried artichokes. Because it is vinegary, it is fantastic with roast meat, as it cuts through the fattiness, particularly lamb. Traditionally it is also served with seafood – perhaps grilled or fried scallops (see page 108), prawns or red mullet. With red mullet, I like to add a little more tomatoes to the caponata.’
Giorgio Locatelli’s ‘Made in Sicily’ was launched in spectacular style last night at Giorgio’s restaurant Locanda Locatelli with Kate Winslet, Gwen Stefani, Nigella Lawson and Antonio Carluccio all out to celebrate with us.
As you’d expect at the launch of Sicilian cookbook at a a Michelin starred restaurant, the food was incredible.
We ate seafood arancini (rice balls), spaghetti with cuttlefish ink, calamari fritti; and for dessert cannoli with orange marmalade and pistachio ice cream and palline di bucce d’arancia (orange zest balls, but it just sounds better in Italian!).
