Dates, Pomegranate, and Persimmon with Silver Cup, by Julian Merrow-Smith.
Here we are in full-blown New York summer. I love the solid heat, the exciting thunderstorms, the rainbows, and, most of all, the produce the wild weather unleashes. Which means it’s ciambotta time.
Ciambotta is Southern Italy’s version of ratatouille. It was a late summer ritual in my family, often using vegetables from my father’s backyard garden. Now it’s my responsibility to carry that on. Ciambotta translates to something like a big mixup or a mess, and the word is often used when someone has created a big emotional mess in their life, as in, “Richie made a real jambot outta his marriage.” (That’s how my family, and most Southern Italian Americans, pronounce the word.) The dish almost always contains the summer quartet of eggplant, sweet pepper, zucchini, and tomato, just like ratatouille, but the Italian version tends to be more freewheeling. Often potatoes or celery, and sometimes chunks of sausage or pancetta, are mixed in, making it a piatto unico, a one-course dish. One thing not to my knowledge ever added to it is dates. But this year they’ve made their way into my version, and I was very happy with how that turned out, the sweet dates playing again the bitterness of eggplant and the acidity of the tomatoes. A success.
I believe I got the idea of adding dates and North African spices to eggplant dishes from one of my Moroccan cookbooks, but I can’t figure out which one (I’ve got a lot of them). I’m thinking it was in a Ghillie Basan book. (If you don’t know her, maybe pick up Flavors of Morocco as a starter. Beautiful recipes, photos, and stories.) Wherever I got the idea from, I just went with it. As you’ve probably noticed, I often add North African touches to my southern Italian food. For me, that’s a natural, flowing from Naples and Sicily’s long-ago history. Much of the Arab influence in Southern Italy has diminished, but I’m here to bring some of it back.
Dates have always fascinated me. How can anything be as sweet as candy and yet be natural? When I was a kid I assumed dates were soaked in sugar, given a sort of candied-cherry treatment. I was amazed to find out they’re just dried. But what excited me more was discovering that those sticky brown dates actually start out as a fresh fruit. I first saw them at Kalustyan’s, the amazing Middle Eastern spice shop in Little India in Manhattan. They were plump, smooth, golden, hanging off of stems in clusters, like bloated grapes. The checkout lady gave me one to taste, and it exploded in my mouth in a sweet gush. Revelation. I try to make it back to Kalustyan’s each year in fresh date season, which happens to start right now and last through September. If you’re interested in tasting a fresh date, make your way over (maybe call first to make sure they’re in stock). However, you’ll want traditional dried dates for this recipe.
Also, if you’d like to read more about ciambotta and consider other approaches to putting this dish together, check out three of may earlier blog posts on the subject here, here, and here.
Ciambotta with Dates and Ras el Hanout
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 big summer onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
½ a fresh peperoncino, minced
2 summer garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ras el hanout spice mix (if you want to make your own, you might want to try my version)
1 large eggplant, stripe-peeled and cut into small cubes
2 fresh bay leaves
A few large sprigs summer savory or thyme
Salt
2 medium zucchini, cut into small cubes
3 medium-size summer tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, lightly salted, and left to drain in a colander for about 15 minutes (save the tomato water, as you might want it to loosen the dish at the end)
A big splash of dry Marsala
10 to 12 pitted dates, cut into quarters
A few drops of rice wine vinegar
A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped
Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Add the onion, bell pepper, peperoncino, half of the garlic, and half of the ras el hanout. Let sauté until everything is fragrant and starting to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the eggplant, one of the bay leaves, and the savory or thyme. Give it a drizzle of olive oil and some salt, and sauté until the eggplant is tender, about 6 minutes. Turn off the heat.
Get out another sauté pan, turn the heat to medium, and add a big drizzle of olive oil, the rest of the garlic, the remaining ras el hanout, and the other bay leaf. Sauté a few seconds, and then add the zucchini, sautéing until it’s tender, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes and a little more salt, and cook for about another 3 minutes. Add the Marsala, and let it bubble away.
Add this to the eggplant mixture. Add the dates, and mix well. Let everything sit for about 5 minutes. The waning heat from the vegetables will soften the dates but not enough to turn them into mush. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt plus possibly a few drops of rice wine vinegar, to bring up the acidity. Add a little of the tomato water if the ciambotta seems too tight. Add the basil.
Serve hot or warm, or even at room temperature. I love this served with scrambled eggs, but it’s really good with lots of things, such as lamb kebabs, or just as is, with Sicilian-style sesame seed bread, for instance.
Erica De Mane 