Caponata
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- La Gallina Caponata was a Barrio Sésamo character played by Emma Cohen corresponding to Sesame Street's Big Bird.
The caponata is a typical dish of Sicilian gastronomy.
It is made out of chopped fried vegetables (mostly eggplants and peppers), seasoned with celery, olives and capers, in a bittersweet sauce. Variations of the ingredients exist: the "classical" recipes on the whole island number well over 37.
Caponata is similar to moussaka, and has spread throughout all the Mediterranean; it is used today generally as a side dish or appetizer, but, since the 1700s, it has sometimes been used as a main course.
The etymology of the name is not entirely known and evokes some controversy: it comes from either the "capon" or from the "caupone", the sailors' taverns.
[edit] Recipe
A classic recipe uses the following ingredients:
- eggplant
- bell pepper
- celery
- tomato
- olive
- caper
- pine fruit
- extra virgin olive oil
- vinegar
- sugar
- salt
[edit] Preparation
- Dice the eggplant and slice the pepper and fry it partially in a pan, and put it aside.
- Dice the tomato, and get rid of its tomato juice, and chop the celery up and then mix it with all the other ingredients which you should then cook for 20 minutes.
- Then add the pepper and eggplant and finish cooking it. Dissolve some sugar in a dessertspoon of vinegar and add this to the cooking mixture.
Add salt and pepper and serve cold.
A variation uses the addition of fried potato.
