Italy Part 20

Nothing like a juicy, tender tuna steak to go with a movie on a Sunday night. I prepared the vegetable topping, the Caponata, ahead of time so that when Joe and I returned from our afternoon kickball game  I could just re-heat it while searing the tuna steaks. 

Caponata with tuna (p. 131)

Cheese and crackers

Garden greens

The eggplant required chopping and sweating
(sprinkling with salt and draining in a colander for 1 hr).

With all of this Italian cooking, I have learned that sometimes the key to incorporating lengthy recipes into a busy schedule requires preparing a recipe in parts. In the picture above, notice how each bowl contains a different mixture of ingredients. Bowl #1 has chopped onion and celery, bowl #2 has peeled, chopped tomatoes, and bowl #3 has the olives, capers, sugar, red wine vinegar and seasoning. These ingredients were separated as such because of the cooking methods required for the sauce: bowl #1 needs to be sauteed first, then add bowl #2 to reduce, and finally bowl #3 to simmer.  Doing such preparations makes the actual cooking seem easy and more relaxed... and perhaps you feel more like a celebrity chef!

Tuna steaks were lightly seasoned with salt and pepper
before "grilling" on my cast iron panini press.

Fresh catch!

The Caponata, with its ripe olives and tart vegetables cooked in sweet vinegar, lent wonderful flavors to complement the mild tuna. As nice as seared tuna is, I believe that the Caponata stole the show! I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I want to prepare it again for different purposes, such as a nice appetizer to accompany hard cheeses and crackers, a novel topping for bruschetta, or a chutney for grilled cheese sandwiches.