Giambotta

This evening (October 22, 2022), my wonderful wife made one of my favorite Italian dishes: Giambotta.

I have been enjoying it since I was a very young kid in the 1960s, when my maternal (Italian) grandmother made it. I prefer eating it cold, directly from the refrigerator, either with a piece of crusty Italian bread or on top of the sausage in a hero sandwich, using that crusty Italian bread. I also sometimes enjoy it over pasta.

The ingredients for this batch are: onions, eggplant, and green bell peppers, all sautéed in olive oil, and with some of the sugo (tomato sauce) that we recently made together. It can be made with sautéed raw tomatoes instead of sugo. Also, zucchini can be added or substituted for the eggplant. Potatoes are sometimes used.

Alternative names for this vegetable stew from southern Italy, where a large part of my family is from, are ciambotta, ciambrotta, ciammotta, cianfotta, and ciabotta.