This may be jumping the gun and starting summer cooking a bit early, but a craving is a craving, and when you want zucchini, you want zucchini.
You can do anything with them; just don’t cook them in water. They’re pretty much all water to begin with (90%, about the same as watermelon and a bit less than cucumber).
What we usually try to do by cooking is reduce the water content to intensify flavour, so cooking zucchini in water is effectively watering down the flavour.
But let me tell you, if you ever decide to cut butter out of your life for a few days and you think you will miss it dreadfully, then stock up on zucchini.
They are SO BUTTERY, without actually needing any butter.
Slice them into coins and pan-fry in a dry non-stick pan until tanned and toasty on both sides, and they’ll taste buttery.
Grate them roughly on a box grater and toss in a garlicky, peppery dressing and they will taste buttery.
Toss a few ribbons of zucchini in extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and lemon zest until warm then shower with toasted almonds, and they’ll taste buttery.
Cut zucchini in half lengthwise, scoop out some of the inner flesh, chop it through some hefty pork and fennel sausage meat, put it all back in place and bake it into zucchini ripieni, and it will taste buttery. And meaty.
Fold them into a few other green vegetables and partly enclose with good pastry for a rustic galette, and they will taste buttery.
Cook them down with some spring onions and chicken stock into a mushy sort of pasta sauce, and they’ll taste buttery.
Slice and fry zucchini in olive oil, then toss with red wine vinegar and mint leaves, and they’ll still taste buttery.
If you have small zucchini, this is the only time to cook them in water - whole, and uncut, for 3 or 4 minutes, then they’re ready to serve anyway you like.
Grate on a box grater and hide inside sausage rolls and meatloaf.
Slip zucchini into curries and stews where it will first drop its own water, then absorb the liquid that it’s in.
Or spiralise. I know you think that spiralising is a fad, but it’s just a different way of presenting vegetables, and it really works for zucchini. Zucchini ‘noodles’ and cherry tomato salad, yes. Zucchini ‘spaghetti’ in a light, fresh tomato sauce with grated pecorino, yes.
Okay, that’s only eleven things to do with zucchini, so I owe you another 537 things, which I’ll save until we’re a bit closer to summer.
In the meantime, here’s that mushy zucchini and spring onion pasta. Must stop calling it mushy, or you won’t make it. Creamy green zucchini pasta sounds better.
CREAMY GREEN ZUCCHINI PASTA
For two
200 g fettucine, or anything really
2 tbsp olive oil
4 spring onions, green stems only, chopped
3 medium zucchini, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely grated
100 ml vegetable or chicken stock
Good handful of parsley leaves
2 tbsp freshly grated parmigiano or pecorino, or more
pinch of dried chilli flakes
1 tsp lemon zest
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat olive oil in a pan and cook garlic, spring onions and zucchini for 5 minutes until softened but not browned.
Add stock, cover and gently simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or until zucchini is tender enough to crush with a fork.
In the meantime, bring a big pot of salted water to the boil, add pasta and cook.
Transfer half the contents of the fry-pan to a blender, add the parsley (for colour and freshness) and pulse a couple of times until, well, mushy. Keep going if you want a smooth puree, but this stage is more texturally interesting.
Return to the pan and heat through.
When the pasta tests al dente, drain it – reserving half a cup of pasta water - and transfer it with tongs into the sauce.
Toss well over medium heat, adding half the parmesan, the lemon zest, chilli flakes, sea salt and black pepper.
Lighten with pasta water if you like, to make it a bit oozy.
Serve on warm plates with remaining parmesan, and extra lemon zest and black pepper.
# If you have any pesto in the fridge, a spoonful would be nice at the adding pasta stage.
# Bacon? What bacon? Oh yeah. Terry thought this would be improved by the addition of something salty and porky, so I tested it with a shower of crisp bacon on top.
# Then he thought a quick sizzle of the broken-up insides of a pork and fennel sausage folded through the zucchini with a touch of cream would be nice. It was. We actually ended up having zucchini pasta with sausage and bacon for dinner, which I suspect was his plan all along. (To do the same thing, make the sauce as above, set aside. Pinch sausage into a bit of oil in the pan and cook through, then dump sauce on top, add a couple of tablespoons of cream, cook through, add pasta and toss well.)
Thanks for reading. And special thanks to my right-hand man, Terry Durack, for asserting the right of every meat-free dish to have a garnish of meat. Heaven help us.
I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.
How about 549: Grated zucchini, chickpea, feta and mint fritters - yum
(also a bit of flour of choice and egg to bind if necessary). Jill M
Thanks as always for ways to deal with our hopeful food gluts; and for explaining how transformative changing textures can be...