I am increasingly turning to vegetables as the starting point of my menu planning and I am excited that my garden is flourishing so that I will soon be able to start picking the new crop of home-grown vegetables. At the weekend, I re-organised my overflowing recipe files and journals, as well as my library in preparation for summer and started a pulling out of my ‘must-do’ dishes. This Sicilian vegetable stew by Antonio Carluccio is one such dish and it ticks all my boxes as a Mediterranean staple – aubergine, tomatoes, capers, green olives, raisins and pine nuts – a combination of Italian, Arabic and French influences I love this dish and encourage you to give it a try. This recipe with serve 4-6.
Sicilian vegetable stew
800g aubergine
1 large onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks
1 tablespoon tomato purée, diluted with a little water
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon salted capers, soaked and drained
20 pitted green olives
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (or verjuice)
Chopped leaves and stalks of 1 head of celery
1 tablespoon raisins
salt and pepepr
1 tablespoon pine kernals
