'Tis the season for zucchini! Prompted by a discussion on the Weekly Menu Planning thread, here is place to talk about all the ways we like (and dislike) zucchini and summer squashes.
To start, here’s a link shared by @Saregama to Julia Turshen’s Zucchini Glut Cheatsheet:
One of my own favorites from the NYT: Australian Egg Slice (gift link):
Also, a shout-out for ATK’s sauteed zuccs, shrooms, and onions with mirin, soy sauce, butter, and garlic (paywall - sorry!):
What are your faves for this quintessential summer veg?
I got a zucchini on clearance the other day. I took a potato peeler and made strips out of it. Then did the same to some carrots and fried them together in some olive oil with a small bit of garlic.
It was actually pretty good and made for a nice side dish. (no pics, though)
The Greek-style fried zucchini that I made last week worked out very well. Cut into medallions, coated with a light, tempura-like batter, fried in the nonstick with just enough oil to add flavor. Tangentially, I fried some romano beans and shrimp in the same batter, and this technique will be in my rotation from now on.
I love to make a very simple zucchini carpaccio. Just thinly sliced zuke in one or two layers at the most on a large plate, drizzled with olive oil, a splash of fresh lemon juice or white balsamic, s&p, fresh chopped thyme, and toasted pine nut. A lil crumbled feta/salted ricotta/kalathaki/similar cheese on top doesn’t hurt — but if you want a lighter dish it is not needed at all.
The acid plays well with the richness of the nuts, and the pignoli also complement the nuttiness of raw zukes.
I do a similar prep with grilled planks: brush them with seasoned olive oil (s&p & oregano), grill just long enough to become flexible, but still al dente. It’s important to keep an eye on them bc they go from perfect to mush very quickly.
Layer on a big plate with a splash of RWV, lots of feta, chopped parsley & mint, then sprinkle generously with sumac.
I also love kolokithakia tiganita like @ernie_in_berkeley posted, with tzatziki for dipping.
I didn’t eat zucchini until a few years ago, and my two gateway dishes were both restaurant ones:
– A simple Zucchini “Carpaccio” with olive oil, lemon juice, and parmesan – this works well with ribbons too, as a Shaved Zucchini Salad, and I like to add some nuts to that for texture (slivered almonds, crushed pistachios or hazelnuts)
– An Italian antipasto that is thinly sliced and fried zucchini that becomes caramelized – similar to this, but I can’t recall if it had mint, or just a bit of garlic and red pepper flakes (not dissimilar to the first part of the pasta prep that went viral via Stanley Tucci)
Aside from these (which I make on repeat):
– Smitten Kitchen has a nice Zucchini Galette (I double the zucchini, and roast it first – here is one I made during DOTQ)
– Mucver / Zucchini Fritters – I ate the Turkish version first, so that is the flavor profile I usually seek, just made some for COTM with nigella seeds.
I also use zucchini in many Indian preps that call for bottle gourd (dudhi) like flatbreads or savory cakes (handvo), and also as a flavor booster or hidden vegetable when I’m feeling lazy to make a separate one – for example grated zucchini melts away into dals and also makes them more delicious, disappears into meatballs, kofte, or meatloaf while tenderizing them and incorporating a veg, and so on.
I used to grate and saute down a pile of zucchini to freeze so I could spontaneously add it to random things, but haven’t done that in a while.
I’m thinking about this Zucchini Butter Pasta from Smitten (well, from Julia Child via F52 via SK) – if I can get the zucchini to caramelize a bit, but maybe starting with half moons instead of grating would work better for me (I’m not into the mush factor of squashes).
I add grated and wrung zucc to ground meat dishes (meatballs, patties, etc…) on a regular basis. In addition to being a flavor booster, it helps keep the dish moist.
I do this, but without the step of sauteeing. Grated and wrung and packed in 1-cup portions. Despite aggressive wringing, it still sheds a ton of water on thawing, but I usually just squeeze that out and proceed. This works best for me with hearty dishes which will be cooked (meatballs, Aussie slice), but not so much with delicate baked things (cakes and breads).
I think the sauteeing avoids that, that’s why I had started doing it – took less time at the using end, even though it took a while to saute down at the front.
Also I had a fall-apart issue with meatballs and meatloaf once or twice when I wrung it out but didn’t saute.
The extra moisture is great in baked goods, though, and in the Indian recipes I mentioned – flatbread & savory cake.
I also think that zuke & shrimp are a good match… like shrimp & peas. I make a farfalle pasta with shrimp and zuke half-moons in a light cream sauce with fresh thyme.
Am I the only one who thinks thyme & zucchini are a match made in heaven?
Zucchini carpaccio is one of my favorite ways to enjoy early summer zucchini. The texture is tender and not spongy, which can often be the case later in the season.
Last night, I did a twist on the prep by dressing the zucchini much like a Greek salad. The two of us easily made this disappear.
I use the wide blade of my Oxo spiralizer to make thin ribbons of zucchini, then do a quick pass with a chef’s knife to cut the ribbons shorter. The spiralizer is far safer for me than a mandoline, because the dog insists on hovering nearby just in case any zucchini bits fall off the counter. Always have to keep my four-legged kitchen “assistant” in mind.
Sometimes I swap around thyme and oregano if that works for the flavor profile of the dish. Depends on what I have. At the moment, I have a bundle of dried Greek oregano—the type dried on the stems—so that’s what I’m using because the thyme I have is just meh in flavor.
I find this quite hilarious, not sure why, my corgis were fiends for broccoli stems, to the point where I felt guilty about eating them instead of handing them over.
