Janice Tripepi

I must second Caro of Food24 – brinjals are in season now and are as cheap as chips and  the key ingredient in a caponata.  My love affair with lamb continues and this meal is a  combo made in heaven.  Roasted rack of lamb with Caponata Sbriciolata!! Simply put – the caponata, which is a medly of peppers, brinjals, olives, zucchini, capers and onion – all cooked in tomato BUT IT IS ……  topped with a parmesan crumble!!!!  Can you ever – PARMESAN CRUMBLE is like any crumble – you just can’t stop.  I am off to review another Durban restaurant in less than  an hour – and every time I pass the kitchen, I just can’t help myself, i just have a spoonful … hehehe ….. Hi my name is Janice and I am a foodaholic!!! 

Max has just eaten the leftover lamb – well, let me put it this way, I made two racks so that Max could have some for lunch today.  To my UTTER AMAZEMENT he ate the caponata as well!  He saw me loading up about 500g of it onto a dessert spoon to shove in my gob – oohing and ah-ing about how the person who invented “crumble” should have been knighted, sainted and given a Nobel food prize or something and 10 Michelin stars and and and!  With a quizzicle look on his face his words were,” Let me try this”  and get your brollies and wellies out peopl, it’s either gonna rain or snow or both.  Max ate veggies!

I hear choirs of angels as I type this. 

Caponata

Cut 3 peppers, 6 zucchini, 10 baby brinjals (or 2 large normal brinjals) and 2 onions into

chunks

6 cloves of garlic roughly chopped

2 tins of Woolies tinned cherry tomatoes

fresh thyme and rosemary

3 dessert spoons of baby capers (or the large ones)

2 chicken stock cubes

lots of pepper

1 cup of dry white wine

In a pot – in some olive oil, fry the onion with some garlic until slightly caramelised

add the white wine and cook out all of the alcohol

add the chicken cubes, pepper, rosemary and thyme and give a good stir

throw in all the chopped chunks of veggies

add the 2 cans of cherry tomatoes and bring to the boil then turn down to a simmer

and leave it to cook for about 40 minutes

Check for seasoning.

This is what the caponata looks like.

For the Parmesan Crumble

In a food processor -

Put in 1 1/2 cups of white flour

Cut 200g of butter into cubes and throw them in

some pepper

a tiny sprinkle of nutmet

100g of grated parmesan

And pulse them to a fine crumb texture. 

Place the caponata into an oven proof dish

and sprinkle the crumble over the top

flick ice cold water over the crumble (to ensure that it crisps up)

and bake at 180d for about 30 – 35 minutes or until golden brown.

I shall warn you that the aroma of the caponata baking – buttery parmesan-y

delicious smells from your kitchen – is sooooooooo good that the smell makes you

incredible hungry!!!

I have run out of space AGAIN !@!###

I will post the roasted rack of lamb at a later date.

Buon Appetito!

xx

Jan