P
Dorset
L E N T Y
The Vital Ingred ent:
Courgettes
The spiralizer has given courgettes a new lease of life, but as Tom East discovers,
you don’t need a fancy gadget to savour this summer squash…
I
8
Courgette spaghetti
with tomato sauce
(Serves 2)
Ingredients
t’s hard to think of a vegetable that has been transformed
by modern cooking techniques quite as much as the humble
courgette. While the spiralizer has revitalised the summer
squash in the last few years, we’ve been learning to love
this member of the cucurbit family in the last decade or so, stuffing and
deep frying its flowers, shaving them into salads or even using them in
chocolate cakes. It used to be so different – remember the old days when
they were boiled for about a week until mushy, smothered in a bland
béchamel sauce, or served up in a tin of ratatouille? Courgette, three
ways? No thanks!
Of course, there’s no reason why ratatouille needs to be forgotten.
Cooked with care, with the courgettes, aubergines, peppers and wedges
of red onion roasted in the oven until they’re nicely scorched, the
famous Provençal stew is a memorable vegetarian dinner, especially
when served with good bread. Indeed, roasting, barbecuing or grilling
brings the best out of a courgette, and while we scoffed at boiling
courgettes for ages, if you fry slices with thyme in a little olive oil for
around 25-30 minutes, something wonderful happens. Try the resulting
sweet, intense mush on some toast.
Herbs like thyme and mint, plus lemon and soft, tearable cheeses, are
perfect partners for courgettes – you can mix together ricotta, thyme
and mint as a filling for a deep-fried courgette flower, or serve lightly
cooked strips in a salad with mozzarella and a lemon dressing. You don’t
even have to cook the shaved strips as they’re delicious as a crunchy,
fresh accompaniment to some oily fish.
Which, finally, brings us to spiralising, where the raw courgette is
passed through a gadget to produce stringy strips which you can use as
a healthy and tasty alternative to pasta or noodles (brilliantly, they’re
called zoodles in the US). Pasta may be great for footballers, but if you’re
not burning off the energy-giving carbs, you can pile on the pounds.
The vegetably alternative only takes a couple of minutes to cook, too,
and it adds an extra flavour and texture to something like an arrabiata
or puttanesca. You don’t even need to spend £30 on a gadget, as, unlike
courgette flowers (you really need to grow your own for those), you can
buy courgette spaghetti in the supermarket.
500g (around two packets if you don’t have a
spiralizer) of courgette spaghetti
20 cherry or baby plum tomatoes, halved
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
8 anchovies, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
20 black olives, halved
Handful of fresh herbs, roughly chopped
(oregano, parsley or basil)
Method
1) Halve your tomatoes, chop your garlic cloves
and anchovies.
2) Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and add the
chillies, garlic and anchovies. Cook for a minute or
two until the anchovies have broken up and then
add the tomatoes. Continue cooking for around 10
minutes until the tomatoes have broken up and you
have a nice thick sauce. Add the olives and throw in
the fresh herbs.
3) While the tomatoes are cooking, heat a small
amount of oil in a wok to prevent the courgette from
sticking. Add the courgette spaghetti and stir-fry for
a couple of minutes until it’s warmed through but still
has a little bite. Mix together with the tomato sauce
and serve.
Grate Courgettes
Got a courgette glut, but had enough of zoodles, stews and salads? Grate them and use them in your bakes.
Courgette
Bread
Grate courgettes
into the mix and
they’ll melt away
into a moist,
sweet loaf.
Courgette
Muffins
Courgette
Chocolate
Cake
Sneak them in
– the children
will never know
they’re eating veg!
Now for
some savoury –
courgettes and
Gruyère make for
a great muffin.
Courgette
Pancakes
Spiralized
Courgettes
Add some grated
courgette to
regular pancake
mix to make these
tasty fritters.
Mangle your mini
marrows through
a spiralizer to
make some
healthy noodles.
www.menu-dorset.co.uk
Yellow and
Green
Roast Veg
Stack
Snuggles-up nicely
with peppers
and aubergine. A
regular on
restaurant menus.
Look for smallish,
firm and shiny
courgettes – you
don’t want any
soft spots.