Capers in our house could end up anywhere. My mother used to mix them with some soft herbs and olive oil to make a kind of rough salsa verde and spoon it over fried or roasted cauliflower. She also introduced them into German-style potato salads, with onion, mustard and broth. My father would fry the capers and serve them with asparagus, or he used them for his involtini: thin slices of veal, which he wrapped around a stuffing of bread crumbs, capers and herbs, seared and cooked in a white-wine sauce. The capers with fried zucchini were served alongside sliced meatloaf or meatballs.
I love all of these applications for capers, but it is this last combination with zucchini that I find most seductive. Sticking to our family tradition of messing around with family tradition, I often use it in pastas and pasta salads, a use that never occurred to either my grandmother or my father.
I find that fried zucchini, with the addition of earthy capers, makes a wonderful base for pasta, as long as there’s something creamy and rich to contrast with the acidity. Normally, I make my pasta very cheesy, using buffalo mozzarella or a nice pile of grated pecorino melted through a sauce, to give the lightly pickled zucchini a chance to gleam.
In my version here, though, there’s no cheese and no meat. The rich creaminess comes from the slow cooking of more zucchini, first for five minutes in olive oil, then alongside the dried pasta and water, for a wonderfully starchy sauce that coats everything in a thick gloss. The fried zucchini and capers, which are added once everything is cooked, break this up, bringing extra texture and a fresh tartness.
For me, all this makes total sense as the next stage in the evolution of my grandmother’s fried zucchini. Perhaps, through a bit of selective memory and the breaking of a few minor rules, I have managed to create a new family tradition.
