In Moneglia, at the restaurant “La Grotta” we tasted a typically Ligurian dish that was new to us: the ligurian caponnadda with tuna mosciame (pronounced mösciame in Genoese, appreciated to the point of suggesting that the name derives from the dialect term muscio, meaning picky person, although the more plausible explanation leads to the Arabic word mossammed, translated as “hard and dry thing”, which became mojama in Spanish).
Despite the name, it has nothing to do with eggplant caponata, and instead belongs to the wide family of “pane salads”.
Quick to prepare, it requires no cooking and enhances the foods available from the sea and the Ligurian hinterland.
There are many variations of the recipe, this is the most common. The base ingredient is the “sailor’s biscuits”, used for other Ligurian recipes like cappon magro, condiglione, and bagnun de anciue.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 4 People
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients for Ligurian caponnadda:
- 4 Sailor's biscuits
- 2.65 oz tuna mosciame
- 3 salted anchovies
- 5.3 oz tuna in olive oil (drained)
- 30 Taggiasca olives
- 3 Eggs
- 1 onion
- 4 Tomatoes
- to taste White wine vinegar
- to taste Capers
- to taste Extra virgin olive oil
- to taste Salt
Preparation
Clean the salted anchovies, remove the bones and tail, rinse them, soak them in cold water or milk (to remove the overly salty taste) for about 15 minutes, dry them with paper towels, and cut them into pieces.
Thinly slice the mosciame.
Boil the eggs until they are hard-boiled, run them under cold water, peel them, and cut them into wedges or slices.
Peel the onion, wash it, dry it, and slice it thinly.
Wash and dry the tomatoes, remove their seeds, and cut them into slices or pieces.
Break the sailor’s biscuits, place them in a bowl, soak them with a mixture of 1 part water and 1 part white vinegar, and once they are softened to the right point (they should not be soggy but remain somewhat crunchy), drain them of excess liquid.
Take a large bowl or salad dish and place all the ingredients inside, including olives and capers.
Stir everything with a wooden spoon, season with extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, and mix again to blend well and homogeneously.Let it rest for at least 1 hour, to allow it to absorb the flavors of the sea and land, before being served chilled from the fridge or at room temperature.
Origins…
It is possible that its first appearance occurred on the leudi, the sailing boats with which the fishermen of Camogli went fishing for anchovies in the open sea. It was in San Rocco di Camogli that they had the idea to organize a festival of the capponadda.
It is possible that its first appearance occurred on the leudi, the sailing boats with which the fishermen of Camogli went fishing for anchovies in the open sea. It was in San Rocco di Camogli that they had the idea to organize a festival of the capponadda.
