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Courgettes galore!

8/11/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
My fridge is full of courgettes, so is the cool cupboard.  Even extra shelves in the garage are full of odd shaped, too round, too long or just too odd excuses for courgettes, green & yellow shapes of nutty deliciousness! Actually, there are even courgettes piled up beside my ironing basket.  It's difficult to say which there is more of, courgettes or ironing.  Happily for the courgettes (and for me), I hate ironing and love cooking courgettes.  Anyone who has even just 1 or 2 plants will know just how abundant these generous plants can be.  They seem to produce a never ending supply.  One of the reasons we have so many in the house is also because when friends come to dinner, they bring with them generous amounts of their own courgette harvest.  They smile, knowingly, when they are served courgette soup with courgette fritters, stuffed courgette with feta and pine nuts & to finish, courgette and ginger pudding.  Yes, there can be too much of a good thing!

If you are looking for a little inspiration, look no further, some of these suggestions may help!

Raw courgette salad
Before you even lift a pan, try grating some firm, small courgettes into a dish and dress with olive oil and sherry vinegar, with salt & pepper to taste.  Alternatively, just use a potato peeler to obtain lovely long but very thin strips. Try adding some very finely sliced red onion, toasted pine nuts and feta.  It's very good with a poached egg surprisingly, but I tend to say that about almost anything. It is perfect with some very lightly cooked salmon or even smoked salmon as a starter.  Add some chilli if you will.

Steamed Courgette & pea cake
We often have this instead of Yorkshire puddings on Sunday, it's massively moreish and endlessly versatile. Pour a little oil into each cup of a muffin tin and grease well. Find a roasting tin that the muffin tin will fit into.  Boil the kettle. Preheat the oven to 200.  Roughly chop 100g of courgette, blend in a food processor with 70g frozen peas, thawed, with the juice of one lemon , 2 tbsp. vegetable oil, good chunk of peeled and chopped root ginger with 120ml water.  Stir in 140g Gram flour,  1/2 tsp. salt,1 tsp. baking powder & 1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda.  Divide the mixture between the muffin tin and place the tin inside the roasting tin.  Carefully pour the hot water into the roasting tray so that it comes half way up the muffin tin.  Cover loosely with tin foil.  Place into the oven for 15-20 minutes until risen and reasonably firm.  Serve hot or cold, on their own or with almost anything else, even roast beef!

Deep fried courgette flowers and baby courgettes
One of the tastiest ways to serve courgettes and their flowers is to coat them in a light batter and deep fry!

16 courgette flowers or baby courgettes
175g/6 oz plain flour
110g/4 oz corn flour
1 egg
Approx. 250 ml/8 oz fizzy water, chilled
Salt
Sunflower oil for frying  

Method


  • Half fill a pan with the oil and put on to heat.
  • Mix the corn flour, flour, salt, and egg together.  Add the water little by little stirring all the time to avoid lumps.  The thicker the batter the thicker the flowers will turn out to be.  For a thinner batter, add more water.  This batter does not need to rest and should be used at once.
  • Make sure that the flowers are free of any insects by tapping against a sink gently (or leaving in a dark place over night), but do not wash.
  • Coat the flowers in the batter and then drop into the hot oil taking care not to add too many at a time as the oil will cool down.  Remove and drain on kitchen towel.  Repeat until all of the flowers have been cooked.
  • Serve at once with chilli jam, some fresh lemon juice or soy sauce.

Courgette fritters
These are my children's absolute favourites!  So easy to make although I often end up munching on them as I batch cook them!

Ingredients


Serves 4
2 free range eggs
5 tbsp. milk (approx.)
25g/1 oz butter, melted
110g/4 oz plain flour

2 courgettes, roughly grated

2 scallions, finely chopped
110g/4 oz cheese, e.g. feta/cheddar/gruyere/mozzarella
1 tbsp. fresh chives, finely chopped
Zest of a lemon
Olive oil for frying
Salt & pepper

 For the Tzatziki:
1 fresh cucumber, washed and coarsely grated but not peeled
2 plump cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tsp. lemon juice
600ml/1 pint organic natural yoghurt
2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh mint

Method
  • Whisk the eggs with the milk and melted butter.  Slowly whisk in the flour and season well.
  • Squeeze the courgette well once it has been grated, to get rid of any water it may contain.  Stir the courgette into the batter mixture with the scallions, lemon zest, cheese and chives.  Combine well together.  Adjust the seasoning as necessary.
  • Heat some oil in a large pan.  Pour in small spoonfuls of the batter depending on what size you would like the fritters to be, and fry for 1-2 minutes either side.  The fritters should puff up slightly and appear golden.
  • Remove to a plate with some kitchen towel and continue frying until all of the batter has been used. 
  • Mix all of the ingredients together for the Tzatziki, adding salt and pepper to taste.
  • Serve the fritters hot with the Tzatziki.

These are just a few ideas so far. Possibilities are endless, try courgette bread or cake, pickled courgettes, courgette jam, frittata, soup, barbecued, stuffed, chargrilled...just go on and on!






2 Comments

Oh blog it!...I'm hungry again!

4/13/2012

1 Comment

 
I've been cooking for roughly 20 years now and I still dream about food.  I think about it in the morning, afternoon and last thing at night too.  I marvel at the different combinations, the ones I know about AND the ones I haven't discovered yet.  What a great world! I've had all sorts of involvement in food from running a catering company, a cookery school, cooking on t.v. and for private events.  I have nearly always managed to steer clear of restaurants...a mad, mad world BUT I still can't get enough food. That is to say, not to eat exactly although my friends and family will tell you that I will never be last to the table (there may be nothing left otherwise!) but I'm really talking about the endless combinations that exist only to be discovered.

I have always told my students in the past that there are no right or wrong combinations.  Food is a very personal thing and different combinations appeal to different people.  I hate food snobbery.  I also hate bad food.  So on second thoughts maybe I am an inverted snob.  Face it, life is to short too eat bad food and drink cheap wine as the saying goes.  What I love, is the idea that anyone can cook up a feast, big or small, in their own homes and really not have to spend a fortune to do it.  An interesting thing about a recession is that it throws up cuts of meat and new recipes that perhaps people have never seen before.  Although I think that by enlarge we eat too much meat, it's fun to find a cut that is so easy to cook, cheap and naturally delicious too. 

Such a cut is Beef Cheek. Oh, please don't be put off just because it's a slightly odd bit of meat.  The great thing about is that it's so versatile.  It doesn't have that really deeply beefy flavour that shin, for example, can have but  it's delicious all the same.  It is good enough to replace you Sunday roast, really it is.  I'm going to add a recipe for cooking it and turning it into Canelloni which can then be frozen or sit in the fridge for a couple of days.  If you're having it for a dinner party, just use the first recipe for slow cooked beef cheek.  It will slice beautifully.  Just don't tell anyone it's actually cheek until the plates have been licked clean!
Picture
Braised beef cheeks in red wine
Ingredients
Serves 4
2-3 beef (ox) cheeks, trimmed of tough sinew
Olive oil and a knob of butter
½ bottle good red wine
1.7 litres/3 pints chicken stock
1 onion, finely diced
2 sticks of celery, finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
4 rashers of streaky bacon, cut into thin strips
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 tsp. cocoa powder
Olive oil
4 fresh bay leaves                                    To garnish:
1 sprig thyme                                            Flat leaf parsley
Salt & pepper                                            
2 star anise                                    
4 spice cloves

Method
•Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3.
• Heat a large, heavy pan and add some olive oil.  Season the beef cheeks very well and sear all over until very brown and crusted.  Remove from the pan and set aside.
•Add the butter, bacon, garlic, diced onion, celery and carrots to the pan with some salt and pepper.  Cook gently for a few minutes and then stir in the cocoa powder.  Pour in the red wine and chicken stock.
•Add the bay leaves, thyme, star anise and cloves.  Return the browned meat to the pan and immerse in the liquid.
•Bring the pot to the boil and then place in the oven for 2 ½-3 hours.
•Once the meat is meltingly tender, carefully remove it from the pot.  Reduce the liquid by half over a medium heat.  Re-season if necessary and stir in some fresh parsley and a knob of butter.
•It should be possible to slice the cheeks even though they are so tender.  Serve hot with crispy potatoes and any vegetable you like!

Picture
Beef Cheek Canelloni
Ingredients
Serves 6-8

500g/1 lb. 2 oz cannelloni pasta tubes
75g/3 oz parmesan cheese

For the béchamel:                                                For the filling:
50g/2 oz butter                                                    2 slow cooked beef cheeks
50g/2 oz plain flour                                           and 600ml of sauce as per recipe
600ml/1 pint warm milk                                 above
Freshly grated nutmeg                                      250g tub ricotta
Salt & pepper

Method
•Start with the filling.  Cut, shred and pull the beef cheeks apart and mix into the sauce.  Season to taste
•To make the béchamel, make a roux first.  Melt the butter and stir in the flour.  Cook for a few minutes over a medium heat but do not allow to brown.  Remove for the heat and add the warm milk little by little whisking well constantly until all of the milk has been added.  Replace on the heat until the sauce begins to thicken.  Simmer for 2-3 minutes, whisking all the time.  Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
•Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
• Fill each pasta tube with some of the beef mixture.  Add some of the left over sauce on the base of an oven proof dish and dot all over with half the ricotta.  Add the pasta tubes in layers and then add the other half of the ricotta and any left-over beef cheek mixture.  Top with the béchamel sauce and sprinkle with parmesan.
•Bake for 40-50 minutes until bubbling, golden and piping hot. 
Serve with a dressed salad and crusty bread.

www.lizmoorecooks.com

1 Comment

    Author

    I've been cooking for roughly 20 years now and I still dream about food.  I think about it in the morning, afternoon and last thing at night too.  I marvel at the different combinations, the ones I know about AND the ones I haven't discovered yet.  What a great world!

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