COURGETTE SEASON 2018
So the 2018 courgette season has arrived and I’m enjoying trying out new recipes to find different ways of preparing them. I prefer to pick them when they are still quite small. That way you can use several at a time when they are at their best for a side dish rather than waiting until they are the size of marrows. There are always some that get away but I’ll slice these lengthways and give them to the chickens so that they can peck out the seeds.
FAVOURITE COURGETTE RECIPE
My all-time favourite way of preparing courgettes is to slice the small courgettes into 2cm slices. Fry them in a covered pan with some extra virgin olive oil. Turn every so often so that they lose their liquid and catch a bit of colour on each side. After 10 minutes or so, toss in a knob of butter, grind over some black pepper and squeeze over some lemon juice. Delicious.
DIFFERENT RECIPES
My challenge each year is to find some new and interesting recipes to use up the abundant crop.
The first recipe I tried didn’t salt the courgettes first which proved to be a messy mistake. In the second one I salted the grated courgette and left for an hour before squeezing the water out.
This recipe is adapted from Felicity Cloake’s “How to cook …” column in the Guardian “How to cook the perfect courgette fritters“.
The second recipe worked a lot better and I’d use this technique again in the future.
Here is the recipe.
- 2 medium-sized courgettes, coarsely grated
- 1 small salad onion, finely chopped
- 2 handfuls of grated cheese
- 2 tablespoons self-raising flour
- 2 tablespoons polenta
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Put the courgette in a bowl, sprinkle over the salt and mix well.
- Leave for about an hour and then transfer to a colander and squeeze out the water.
- Add the onion, flour, polenta and egg and mix well.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Heat some oil in a frying pan.
- Put in spoonfuls of the courgette mixture and fry on a high heat for 3 minutes.
- Flip the fritters and fry for a further 3 minutes on the other side.