Mediterranean Medley with Amanda Freitag at the Harrison

Divya Gugnani: Hi! I’m Divya Gugnani and we’re here at the Harrison, where European techniques some flavors are combined with American seasonal ingredients. So let’s go Behind the Burner and meet the chef. We’re here at the Harrison with Executive Chef Amanda Freitag. Amanda, what are you making for us? Amanda Freitag: Okay, I’m going to make an eggplant caponata with a snooper. These are the most beautiful eggplants you’ve ever seen. They’re actually plump graffiti eggplants and, if there are any dark spots on eggplant, you definitely don’t want it. Okay, should be first— Divya Gugnani: Single dark spots. Amanda Freitag: Yeah, the flesh should be really clean. Another important tip is we have this salt it. Divya Gugnani: So, why do you salt it? Amanda Freitag: Okay, you have to get liquid out of this eggplant. Divya Gugnani: Okay. Amanda Freitag: Otherwise, when you cook it, it’s going to soak all of the oil like a sponge. So, I’m going to use this beautiful tuscan olive oil enough to brought the pan and then in goes the eggplants and there are no olive oils not burns at all. Another technique here is that people will put something in the pan and now I start to shake it. And what happens? The pan is cool, and now you’re shaking it and get what? It’s going to stick. Divya Gugnani: Right. Amanda Freitag: So you got it rest. Now, we’re starting here at sizzling them. So fight the impulse to start up. You want you start up and shake because it is going to stick. And I think the natural instinct is to shake it so that it won’t stick. Running this other pan, you’re basically going to make the rest of cup banana here. You can’t do it all together because you have to put the sugar and vinegar before it hits the caponata. So, I’m going to start with garlic and onion. And then in goes the red onion and it’s going to cool down the pan a lot. And the red onion is going to give some juice, also. The next thing we’re going to put in is tomato paste. So, here we have our tomato paste. We’re going to do something called deglaze here with the vinegar. Put the vinegar in and it’s going to deglaze the pan. When we say deglaze, it’s pulling all the particles off the bottom of the pan exactly. It’s going to pull together everything from the onions, from the garlic, from the tomato paste and it’s going to all come together and it’s going to form this delicious sauce for your eggplant. This is going to here. So we’re going to start to liquid for our polenta, which is a grape a compliment with this dish. So we have milk and water for us butter. Divya Gugnani: Butter is very important. Amanda Freitag: Butter, just a little. This is a corn meal that’s made for making polenta. It is so delicious. It is made with this organic beautiful corn. It’s so in browned. It gives you this amazing texture when you make a polenta. Do you really want to whist this in. Divya Gugnani: Very important to whist. You can corporate the air and then you really mix the ingredient as well. Amanda Freitag: Right and you don’t want any lumps. So your polenta is ready and you can let it sit. And now that you can sit is a really good idea because it’s super hot. You’re going to season your snuffer on both size. Divya Gugnani: Salt, black pepper. Amanda Feitag: Salth and black pepper. Okay so the fish is going to in, pressing in a little bit because I want all the skin to heat all the heat of the pan, and I’m going to right in the oven. So look at that snuffer, and we have a beautiful golden crispy skin. Divya Gugnani: Amanda, it looks simply gorgeous. Amanda Feitag: Thank you, thank you. Divya Gugnani: So what are we having here? Amanda Feitag: We’re having pans here snuffer with eggplant caponata and creamy polenta. Divya Gugnani: I think the creaminess of the polenta is balanced perfectly with the medley of Mediterranean flavors from the caponata. You really get that kind of Mediterranean seed pilled. So Amanda, thank you so much for having us here and preparing one of your signature dishes at the Harrison for us. Amanda Feitag: My pleasure. Divya Gugnani: Behind the Burner members can enjoy this exclusive opportunity to purchase Amanda Feitag’s special ingredients for her signature dish here at the Harrison at Primizie fine foods. Stay tune to Behind the Burner where we give you the tips, tricks and techniques that are lighting the culinary world on fire.