Italian Vegetable Stew- Ciambotta

“Ciambotta- Italian vegetable stew in my way 🙂
Super fresh & juiciest. Pure healthy bliss & I’m loving it..

Ciambotta- Italian Vegetable Stew

Ingredients for stew:

1/2 cup eggplant, cut in to 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup zucchini, cut in to 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup chopped red and yellow bell pepper
4-5 broccoli florets
4 cherry tomatoes
1 Onion chopped
1 or 2 garlic clove, chopped
2 tbs tomato puree( I used canned one)
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 jasmine rice boiled(optional)
1 cube mozzarella cheese, grated(optional)

Pestata Garnish:

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup oregano leaves
4 cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup thyme
1/4 ts red pepper flakes

Method:
1. Dry roast the eggplant pieces in microwave so that it becomes little dry and spongy.

2. Put oil on high heat in a the pan, add chopped garlic and onion. sauté for a while till it gets translucent

3. Add eggplant, bell pepper, broccoli and sauté for 5 minutes.

4. Now time to add tomato puree, push the veggies to the sides of the pan, add a tablespoon of oil and the tomato puree and stir till a brown fond develops on the bottom of the pan, like for 2 minutes. make sure that puree doesn’t burn

5. Now add cherry tomatoes and 2 cup of water and on medium flame, cover the pot, and simmer till the veggies are semi cooked and dissolved in tomato puree, about 10-15 minutes.

I also added boiled rise while stew was cooking to make it little filling. you can skip it.

Ciambotta- Italian Vegetable Stew

For Garnishing:

There are two ways to do it, If you have fresh leaves of basil oregano and thyme , then make pestata garnish to mix it with veggies. This is a pesto-like garnish which is widely served as side dish in traditional Italian meal

Grind all the ingredients in grinder as mentioned above and mix it the pan . I didn’t have thyme and oregano fresh leaves so I used dry herbs instead and mix it in the pan but fresh pestata flavour is heavenly so add it if you can manage. Mix the garnish well within the stew and sprinkle mozzarella cheese before serve. It goes well with cracker or hard breads.