Cappon Magro

A Genoese pyramid of fish and vegetables built on soaked biscuit, each layer dressed separately.

Fish, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish, shellfish.

Ingredients

• 600 g firm white fish, poached
• 300 g prawns, cooked
• 4 potatoes, 4 carrots, 2 beetroot, 200 g green beans, 1 cauliflower, all boiled separately
• 200 g ship's biscuit or hard rusks
• 200 ml white wine vinegar, diluted, for soaking
• a large bunch of parsley, for the green sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, for the green sauce
• 40 g pine nuts, for the green sauce
• 4 anchovy fillets, for the green sauce
• 2 hard-boiled egg yolks, for the green sauce
• 2 tablespoons capers, for the green sauce
• 200 ml olive oil, for the green sauce
• hard-boiled eggs, olives and more prawns, to finish
• 2 teaspoons salt

Method

1. BOIL EVERY VEGETABLE SEPARATELY and dress each one while warm with its own oil, vinegar and salt. Cooked together they trade colours and flavours, and beetroot would turn the whole dish pink.
2. Make the green sauce: pound the parsley, garlic, pine nuts, anchovies, yolks and capers to a paste, then work the oil in slowly.
3. Soak the biscuit briefly in diluted vinegar until it yields but still holds. Lay it as the base on a wide plate.
4. BUILD UPWARDS AND INWARDS, each layer smaller than the last: a layer of vegetable, a smear of green sauce, a layer of fish, more sauce. Narrow it as you go so it stands as a dome.
5. The name means 'lean capon' and it is a fasting dish — there is no meat in it. It was built like this to look like a banquet centrepiece on a day when meat was not allowed.
6. Stud the outside with prawns, olives and egg quarters and spoon the last of the sauce over.
7. Refrigerate 2 hours before serving so it sets enough to cut in wedges.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes