I love visiting farm stands at this time of year. On each visit, I seem to find new produce coming into season.
Two weeks ago, I saw my first zucchini. There are those who despise zucchini and make jokes about planting these little squashes on their neighbors’ doorsteps in the middle of the night and running away, just to get rid of the darn things. It’s true that zucchini can go a little wild if not strictly controlled in a garden. Nevertheless, I defend it. I view zucchini as the fruitcake of summer, a much maligned food that deserves a lot more appreciation than it gets.
Zucchini is supremely versatile. It’s great sautéed all by itself. It’s also delicious in soups, stuffed (I love a zucchini “boat”), made into savory pancakes, or included in baked goods that stay moist for a long time. I make zucchini cake, zucchini brownies, zucchini bread and so forth. I can’t think of another vegetable that matches zucchini in terms of its number of uses.
Nevertheless, the vegetable I discovered first in a farm stand last week comes close: corn. Corn can be sweet or salty. We tend to steam or boil it on the cob because it’s so good that way, but it, too, can go into soups, stews and casseroles. Having found both zucchini and corn, I decided I had to combine them in some way. They would make amazing two-toned pancakes, I believe, and I may in fact try using them that way sometime soon.
For this week, however, I decided to combine them in a caponata. Caponata is a Sicilian dish traditionally made with eggplant. It’s a cousin of the French ratatouille with — in my opinion — extra personality. It gets a bit of salt from cured olives and a bit of sweet from sugar. Long ago, I saw a recipe for Zucchini Caponata. We won’t have fresh, local eggplant for a while, but zucchini is just getting started here.
Zucchini seems appropriate for caponata. Both are international. Although, as I noted earlier, caponata is a Sicilian dish, it draws on Italian and even Arabian traditions and ingredients. Similarly, zucchini is an Italian descendant of a Mesoamerican squash. Corn gives my new version of caponata a bit of American flair and is perfect for early summer. It also sweetens the dish naturally. Most caponata recipes use sugar to balance the salt of the olives, etc., in “agrodolce” fashion. (“Agro” means sour; “dolce” means sweet.) Here, I tossed in just a pinch of sugar and let the corn do most of the work.
The ingredients in the caponata aren’t fixed, obviously, and neither are the quantities. I’m always happy to throw in more olives in particular. And I love to use as many herbs as possible. They add to the yellow of the corn, the pale green of the zucchini, and the red of the tomatoes to make a dish that screams “Summer!” My own herb garden is rather sad this year, but fortunately, my neighbor Ruth grows her herbs in containers and is happy to share her healthy harvest.
You may serve your caponata as a sort of relish with fish or chicken. (Fish is a traditional Sicilian choice.) I was going to serve mine with toasted slices of French bread, but it was too hot to put the bread slices in the oven last week when I was testing the recipe. Instead, I used crackers that looked like toasted bread slices. Delicious!
Early Summer Caponata
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1-1/2 cups chopped zucchini
1 medium onion, diced
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 medium to large tomato, cut up (I don’t mind the skin, but if you do, peel your tomato.)
1 pinch sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
several turns of the pepper mill
1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon capers (drained)
20 pitted and halved black olives, preferably oil-cured
chopped parsley and basil to taste
Instructions:
Place a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the oil and then the zucchini, the onion, the garlic and the chopped tomato. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Uncover the pan, add the corn and cook the mixture for 10 to 15 minutes more, stirring frequently, until all the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the sugar, the salt and the pepper. Remove the pan from the heat.
When the mixture is lukewarm, stir in the capers, the cherry tomatoes, the olives and the fresh herbs. Store covered and refrigerated until ready to use. Serves a crowd as an appetizer.
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.