This is a lovely spring dish but it would be lovely in winter too. I used the lovely long thin asian eggplants. I find they don’t have the bitterness of the big egg shaped eggplants so don’t need to be salted before cooking. I was considering making a straight eggplant and olive caponata to go with the cutlets but I had some of my ricotta left over and it needed to be used. I decided to go for a nice long bike ride last night instead of making the ricotta based dessert I had planned. Probably not a bad thing and tonight’s meal has certainly benefited as a result.

Crumbed Cutlets with Creamy Caponata

To crumb and cook the cutlets:
Dust cutlets lightly with flour. Dip in a lightly beaten egg which has been thinned a little with milk. Then coat thoroughly in breadcrumbs.
These can either be pan fried until cooked as you like or oven baked at 180 degrees for a less fatty result.

To make Creamy Caponata:
4 Asian eggplants
2 cloves garlic
1 small red chilli
handful basil leaves, torn
4 -5 tomatoes finely chopped (or a 400g tin)
approx. 20 kalamata olives
220g ricotta

To make in thermomix – Chop garlic and chilli for 10 seconds on speed 7. Roughly chop eggplant, place all ingredients in thermomix and blend for 20 seconds on speed 4. Cook for 5 minutes at 90 degrees

To make conventionally – Finely chop garlic and chilli. Chop eggplant into small pieces . Cut tomatoes into small pieces. Roughly chop olives. Mix all inngredients together. Place in saucepan and gently heat.

Serve cutlets on top of caponata.

I served ours with lightly steamed asparagus as well. Always the perfect spring touch.