Category Archives: courgettes

turkey and courgette meatballs

bacon, courgettes, food, lemon, turkey

turkey and courgette meatballs

student-survival-guideIn another one of my recipes for students, I’ve taken inspiration from the wonderful Ottolenghi. In his latest book (Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press, £27)) he and long-time collaborator Sami Tamimi return to their home town of Jerusalem to reminisce on the food gems of their youth. It’s full of wonderful recipes and ideas, and generally speaking most of the recipes are thrifty and homely in nature.

This recipe is inspired by “turkey and courgette burgers with spring onion and cumin.”  The meatballs are so substantial they don’t need any carbohydrates; if you need to make it go further serve with pasta or rice. This meal is relatively expensive but you’ll make tons of meatballs that freeze well, and extra tomato sauce which keeps in the fridge for a couple of days

Approximate cost  for main ingredients, excludes storecupboard ingredients (prices from Tesco.com 7th Oct 2012): £4.13

Turkey and courgette meatballs (makes about 20):

For the meatballs:

500g minced turkey

2 rashers bacon, diced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cream cracker, bashed to dust

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 large courgette, grated

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 egg

For the sauce:

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tin tomatoes

  1. For the meatballs, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well with a pinch of salt. With damp hands form into chunks the size of golf balls.
  2. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat with a little oil, and a normal saucepan over a high heat with a little oil. Add the meatballs to the large pan and brown them on all sides for about 7 – 10 minutes. You should do this in batches if this is going to crowd the pan.
  3. Meanwhile in the other pan crush in the garlic and then immediately add the tomatoes. This will spatter and bubble so watch out. Add a pinch each of salt, sugar and pepper. You should continue to simmer this sauce until when you draw a wooden spoon through it leaves a channel, so it is thick and rich. At this point tip the meatballs into the sauce and cook for a couple more minutes to cook through.
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courgette carbonara

bacon, courgettes, cream, egg, food, pancetta, pasta

courgette carbonara

I am utterly aghast that I have not blogged this before. I must’ve made it half a dozen times and it never fails to delight, yet somehow it fell through the cracks. I was chatting with a colleague that I was having this for dinner and she asked if it was on my blog. “Of course,” I said, “I’ve cooked it loads of times.” And yet there it wasn’t.

This is a great twist on carbonara. It always nags at me that these delicious pasta dishes don’t have a veg component which means cooking something else on the side. You can’t fault the Italians; it’s the way they eat but I prefer to have everything together. I find peas a little too harsh against the creaminess but the addition of courgette is a great one. It’s an idea I’ve lifted from Jamie at Home and it’s really worth trying. I’m also a big fan of dishes where the sauce is cooked in the same time as the pasta so can be up and on the table in under 15 minutes. Brill.

Courgette carbonara (serves 2):

1 large courgette

6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, cut into small pieces

Leaves from a sprig of thyme

150ml double cream

A large handful of grated parmesan

250g penne

2 egg yolks

  1. Get a large pan of salted water on the boil and a big frying pan on a high heat.
  2. Slice your courgette in half, then use a spoon to scoop out the fluffy seeds and discard. Slice the courgette on an angle so you end up with pieces about the same size as the pasta.
  3. Chuck the pasta in to boil and keep checking for when it’s al dente. In your frying pan add a splash of oil and toss in the bacon. Keep frying until crisp on once side, then add the courgette and thyme and give everything a good toss to coat in bacony goodness. Meanwhile in a jug stir together the cream, parmesan and egg yolks and grind over loads of black pepper – it really helps cut through the cream. Toss your courgettes every now and then.
  4. Get a mug and scoop out some of the pasta cooking water to slacken your sauce in a minute. When the pasta is cooked drain, and when the courgettes are starting to go tender turn the heat off of the pan (this is important to avoid scrambling the eggs) and add your creamy mix. Keep stirring it to stop the egg clumping and add a dash of the reserved water. Toss with the pasta, check for seasoning and add a little more water if you need a bit more liquid in your sauce. Serve immediately with a dash more parmesan, this dish doesn’t hang around!

halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette

aubergine, balsamic vinegar, courgettes, halloumi

halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette

I was recently sent some recipes by Ocado written by Sophie Michell. Apparently they’re under the banner of “Tweet Yourself Thin”. I’m not entirely sure I got the concept of being tweeted recipes every day but I had halloumi, courgette and aubergine to use up so it hit me at the right time. And it’s refreshing, zingy and tasty. It’s intended to be a lunch dish but I added a wedge of baked polenta to pad it out a bit.

Halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette (serves 2):

250g halloumi

2 courgettes

2 medium aubergines

For the dressing:

2 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled

2 cloves garlic, minced

75ml extra virgin olive oil

25ml balsamic vinegar

1 pinch of caster sugar

1 tsbp of chopped fresh basil

  1. Slice the halloumi, aubergine and courgette into even slices. Heat a large griddle pan and griddle the veg on both sides until nicely charred.
  2. Blitz the dressing ingredients together and season to taste.
  3. When the veg is done, add the halloumi for 30 secs each side until slightly charred and warm. Serve immediately dressed with the vinaigrette and a splash more balsamic.

saltimbocca with courgette fries

courgettes, polenta, prosciutto, sage, turkey, veal

turkey and veal saltimbocca with polenta and courgette fries

This post is dedicated to Laissez Fare.

Twitter friend and all-round good egg Laissez Fare was upping sticks and moving back to his homeland, USA. He was throwing a party but wouldn’t you know it, it was during my only week’s holiday of the year. So we managed to arrange a separate lunch where we could chat, eat and give him a little send-off. Using his wiles he’d booked us a table at the titchy-but-perfectly-formed Polpetto.

We had a lovely meal and sampled many dishes – including a £7.50 sandwich I couldn’t ignore. Ironically the disappointment was the polpetti, which tasted only of the fennel marinade they were in. However lots of them were top drawer, such as the pigeon saltimbocca cooked to a perfect purple-pink with fragrant sage, and finely-sliced zucchini fries with a light tempura-style crunch. I enjoyed these so much I attempted to recreate them later that week at home.

I happened to have some turkey and veal hanging around the freezer so chose those over the pigeon version, and made one each of those. They were great, yet surprisingly the turkey version was more interesting than the veal. And the courgette fries were equally tasty. I had the oil a touch too hot at the start, but once it calmed down the fries were much more consistent. I was very pleased with the results.

If you’re in the Leicester Square area, forego those touristy places and try to grab a seat at Polpetto – tasty food, kind and informal service and very reasonable prices. +1 for the non-matching crockery too.

Saltimbocca with courgette fries:

For the saltimbocca:

4 breasts of turkey or veal

4 slices of prosciutto

4 sage leaves

100ml beef stock

For the fries:

2 courgettes, diced to approx 4mm matchsticks

100g plain flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon honey

200ml carbonated water

Vegetable oil (or similar) for deep-frying

  1. First make the batter. Stir the flour, baking powder and honey together with a pinch of sugar and whisk in the water. Clingfilm and pop in the fridge for half an hour. (This will ‘set’ the batter and hold the bubbles in place).
  2. Place the breasts between two pieces of clingfilm and pound until it’s about half a centimetre thick. Discard the clingfilm, place a sage leaf on each breast, season and wrap in a slice of prosciutto.
  3. Get a frying pan to a medium heat and add a little oil. Fry the saltimbocca for 7 – 8 minutes until cooked through, and put to one side to rest. Add the stock to the pan and boil hard to reduce and get the good stuff off the pan.
  4. Bring enough oil to fill 2/3 of a pan to 190°C. Dip the courgette in the batter, shake off the excess and deep-fry in batches. They will only take 45 seconds – 1 minute to cook and turn light brown. Put to kitchen paper to drain and toss over some sea salt.
  5. Serve the saltimbocca on soft polenta, pouring the pan juice / stock over.

thai chicken curry with kung po rice

chicken, coconut, courgettes, peppers, rice

thai chicken curry with kung po rice

Having both rice and curry paste in the cupboard to use up, I played with the idea of Thai green curry to create a lifting and tasty midweek meal. Using some Tilda Kung Po stir fry rice and other bits and bobs lying around, I lucked on to something pretty nice.

Thai chicken curry with Kung Po rice:

2 chicken legs

Dark soy sauce

1 courgette, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

1 packet Kung Po stir fry rice

For the sauce:

1 teaspoon Thai green paste

1 can coconut milk

500ml chicken stock

Fish sauce to taste

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Shake some soy sauce over the chicken legs and rub all over. Pop in the oven for 40 mins until crisp and cooked through. Shred the meat off the bone with two forks.
  3. Put the paste in a pan and sizzle for a minute, then add the remaining sauce ingredients and simmer to reduce.
  4. In a separate pan fry the courgette and pepper in a little oil until tender, then add the chicken meat. Add the rice and cook for a further minute. Combine with the sauce and serve.

seriously good pasta bake

balsamic vinegar, basil, chorizo, courgettes, pasta, tomato

seriously good cherry tomato and balsamic vinegar pasta bake

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you might notice I do a lot of things “from scratch” (I really hate that phrase, like a badge of snobbish one-upmanship), because I enjoy it and I like knowing what goes into my dinner. In my time of course I’ve used pasta sauces and the like, and they range from OK to pretty good to truly vomit-inducing (usually ones that involve mascarpone).

seriously good pasta sauceI wouldn’t usually blog about such a jar but I happened to use a Seriously Good pasta sauce. These are Gordon Ramsay-devised with a 10p donation to Comic Relief for each jar sold. And no, Gordon doesn’t get a penny. There’s a bunch of flavours, and the one I used happened to be cherry tomato & balsamic. Peering over the ingredients list on the label is very surprising: you can pronounce everything. And I can buy all of them in any supermarket. That’s very reassuring.

I chucked it in a pasta bake with some chorizo and courgette, and it was lovely. Well worth a try – certainly if you find it on promotion, as it was in my local Sainsbury’s. At least bask in the glow of making a small donation to a good cause :-)

Seriously good pasta bake (serves 4):

400g fusilli

100g chorizo, roughly diced

2 large courgettes

1 jar Seriously Good cherry tomato and balsamic sauce

Cheddar cheese

Some basil leaves, shredded

Splash of balsamic vinegar

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Get a pan of salted water on to boil and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. Get on with the rest of the recipe and when ready, drain until needed.
  3. In a large oven-proof pan, heat a little oil and add the chorizo. Cook briefly until it starts to colour on all sides, then add the courgette.
  4. Continue to fry for 3-4 minutes, tossing frequently so the courgette gets coated in the rich chorizo juices and is starting to turn tender.
  5. Add the sauce, then refill the jar half-full with water. Sloosh it around to gather up the dregs of the sauce and pour into the pan. Bring up to the boil and then add the drained pasta. Make sure everything is well-mixed and pop into an oven for ten minutes, or until the tops of the pasta sticking out are starting to turn dark-brown.
  6. Scatter the basil over the top, grate some cheddar over and sprinkle with balsamic. Grind a little black pepper on top and a swirl of your best extra virgin olive oil, then return to the oven for a further minute or two, until the cheese has melted. Serve piping hot.

thai green curry

chicken, courgettes, curry, food, mushroom, nam pla

thai green chicken curry

There are times when only the fire, sweetness and creamy sour hit of a Thai curry will do. I’d not cooked one before so I chickened out slightly and bought a ready-made paste. It was very tasty but a leeetle on the spicy side – I’ll use a bit less next time.

I agree that chestnut mushrooms and courgettes are inauthentic but the earthiness and body they offer really match up.

Thai green curry:

2 chicken breasts, diced

1 courgette, sliced

250g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

2 teaspoons Thai green curry paste (I used Barts)

Half a teaspoon green peppercorns

400ml coconut milk

200ml chicken stock

4 kaffir lime leaves, shredded

Few splashes of nam pla

Bunch of coriander

  1. Fry the chicken in a little oil until coloured all over and remove to one side. Fry the courgette and mushroom in the same pan until they start to turn tender. Again, put to one side.
  2. Fry the paste for a minute to release the oils, then add the pepper corns. Add the milk and stock and bring to a boil. Pop the chicken and veg back in the pan and continue to simmer for about ten minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has reduced to a creamy consistency.
  3. Add the lime leaves and nam pla to taste, and serve with inauthentic but really tasty basmati rice. Garnish with torn coriander.

thai rice soup with chicken

carrots, chicken, courgettes, food, rice, stock

thai rice soup with chicken

It was one of ‘those’ Mondays; very little in the cupboard and mouths to feed. What I did have however, was some Tilda Stir Fry Thai Green rice and one of Jo Pratt’s recipe cards from a recent cookalong. Using that as a starting point I knocked up a ten min din which was slurpy, filling and had that tickle of heat rolling through your mouth and leaving you with a warm feeling in your belly.

The Tilda rice helpfully skips all the pastes and mounds of herbs and spices, which gives it a real authentic taste. It may sound like a complete shill but I believe in the product – we’re all busy people and these kinds of ethical prepared foods give us handy shortcuts. Sometimes you have the time, and you can bash down a Thai paste and simmer the ingredients gently. Sometimes you don’t and that’s where these come in.

I decided to use a yaki soba style sauce to enrich the broth, and yanked courgettes and carrots from the garden for veg. However my coriander was looking decidedly ropey and attempting to go to seed, so rather than use the leaves I went for a coriander “bouquet garni”, tying some stalks together and leaving it in the soup to give out flavour as it cooks. I’d prefer to use the greenery but it’ll do in a pinch.

(PS. Note the oversize teacup serving dish. I really must get around to buying Chinese style soup bowls – I have the spoons but no bowls!)

Thai rice soup with chicken:

2 chicken breasts, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

1 litre chicken stock

1 tablespoon chilli dipping sauce

1 pack Tilda Thai Green Rice

1 medium carrot, cut into matchsticks

1 medium courgette, cut into matchsticks

Bunch of coriander stalks, tied into a bundle

1 small red onion, cut into rings

Sesame oil

For the yaki soba sauce:

100ml light soy sauce

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

  1. Get the yaki soba sauce on: put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Whack down to low and allow to reduce gently until syrupy. Put to one side.
  2. Heat a little oil in a wok until smoking and add the chicken. Stir fry quickly until the chicken is white all over, then add the garlic. Fry for another 30 seconds and add the stock and chilli sauce.
  3. After bringing the stock to the boil add the carrot and rice. Continue to cook for another minute and then add the courgette, ½ the yaki soba sauce, coriander bunch and rice. Bring back to the boil and simmer for another few minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Taste to see if it needs more yaki soba sauce (if not this can be kept refrigerated for another day).
  4. Remove the coriander and serve in bowls, garnished with onion and a few drops of sesame oil.

grilled courgette masala

courgettes, food
griddled tori masala

griddled tori masala

To accompany the mega-rich butter chicken, I wanted a veg-based accompaniment. I was in the mood for courgette so Googled Indian-influenced courgette recipes. Disappointingly there was hardly anything out there; it’s not a particularly Indian ingredient and the only recipe that seemed to crop up was one for “courgette with peas and tomato” which was moving away from the side-dish I was after. There was nothing left but to get creative. I thought about how I would prepare a courgette, and thinly sliced and griddled is one of my favourite. By adding a curry-flavoured oil I was pretty much there. I was really pleased with how they turned out and will stick them out front for another Indian meal some time.

Griddled tori masala:

2 courgettes, thinly sliced lengthways

100ml vegetable oil

1 teaspoon garam masala

3 cloves garlic, grated

  1. Combine the oil with the garam masala and garlic and heat in a pan over a low heat. Once the garlic pieces start to fizz and bubble, turn the heat off and allow it to infuse the oil for 15 minutes.
  2. Preheat a griddle to very hot. Brush one side of the courgettes with the oil and griddle the courgette oil-side down.
  3. After a couple of minutes peek underneath. If the char-marks are starting to appear, brush the raw side and slip them over.
  4. When griddled on both sides, drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt and pepper.