that anyone in possession of a courgette plant must be in want of courgette-loving neighbours. And recipes, recipes, recipes!
Yes, courgettes are stupidly productive. You never have any idea how many fruit are lurking in the undergrowth...
(The one in the picture is an imposter, by the way, but that's another story.)
Well I'm lucky enough to have the courgette-loving neighbours - or at least they haven't complained yet - and now I'm trying out lots of ways of using courgettes as well. Here's the first.
Baba ganoush made from courgettes
instead of aubergines, which we sadly do not have a glut of.
Most recipes tell you to start by baking the courgettes in the oven until the skin is charred, then to scoop out the flesh. While this does dry out the flesh pretty well, it also heats up the kitchen horribly at a time of year when you really don't want to. What's more, I haven't really found that charring the skin imparts any of the longed-for smokiness to the courgette flesh. So I add smoked paprika or similar for smokiness.
Other cooking methods I've tried:
grilling thick slices in my George Foreman grill (a lot of work and produces a lot of heat, too)
boiling briefly or steaming in a pan
putting large chunks in my instant pot: timer set to zero - just long enough to bring to pressure - and then quick-release. This is the the easiest and coolest way for me in the heat of the summer.
Baking does give the best texture, though, so if you really want a thick baba ganoush then this is probably the way to go - just don't do it on a sweltering day!
After cooling, you squeeze out excess moisture (or not), then whizz the pulp up with tahini, salt, garlic, lemon juice or zest - and whatever else you fancy. I always add extra virgin olive oil, and our current favourite flavouring of green coriander seeds, another plentiful allotment ingredient at this time of year. These fresh seeds have a flavour all their own, and I usually whizz some up with the other ingredients, and sprinkle some whole seeds on top as a garnish and to give a citrusy, herby zing when bitten into.
Below: green coriander seeds
Eat it with anything. It's delicious as a dip with (eg) cucumbers, lettuce, french beans or radishes, not to mention pitta or similar. It's also great as a light sauce for warm vegetables. We particularly like it flavoured with a little truffle oil and served over steamed potatoes. I find myself making it two or three times a week at the moment.
Store it in the fridge, but it doesn't keep particularly well. If you haven't used it all up by the third day - perhaps because the weather turned and nobody wanted cold dips - simply use it as the basis of a hot sauce for pasta or similar - add tomato puree, etc - or add it to a soup. More about this in a future post. ;)
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