Courgettes

30 May

Make no mistake, I love courgettes. Some of my children, however, might disagree. And here is where the magic of cookery comes in. If there’s one thing I can tell you about cooking with courgettes, so they appeal to everyone, it’s that courgettes can take flavour, and then more flavour, and then there’s no excuse and no escape, because courgettes really are completely delicious. You just need to know how to work with them, and I'm here to show you how. The versatility of courgettes in the kitchen makes them a ubiquitous addition to my cookery in the summer and early autumn. Granted, you can buy courgettes all year round, but June to October here in Europe is their time to really shine.

Courgettes are botanically a fruit, and not a vegetable, and come the summertime, they are in abundance in the shops. A member of the cucurbit family, courgettes are related to watermelons, gherkins and cucumbers. When buying courgettes look for smaller, firmer courgettes with glossy skins. The courgettes should feel heavy in your hand and not spongy or soft. Courgettes can be fried, baked, roasted, squashed, squeezed, grated, steamed, boiled and also eaten raw. Mostly savoury in application, I have also included my Kiwi mother-in-law’s recipe for courgette loaf in this set of recipes. Legendary amongst family members is Mary’s prodigious baking and stockpiling of this courgette loaf for picnics and fishing trips all year round over in New Zealand.

As for the remaining recipes here in this series, nothing is too difficult. In cooking I want to encourage readers and users of my recipes to have a can-do attitude. Following a recipe should not be a daunting exercise. I create recipe reels on instagram to accompany much of my recipe output. I know first-hand that many of you like to watch a reel, then check the written recipe. The two mediums work very well together and as someone who writes about food day to day, it feels good to practice what I preach with these short cookery videos. If there is a recipe or technique of mine that you’d like some clarification on, by all means email me through my website and I’ll always do my best to demonstrate the dish or task as a reel on my instagram. How about that for service!

Just this morning in Bristol, I nipped into my local greengrocer and bought a load of courgettes to cook with over the next few days. Next week, I’ll post a few of these recipes as reels. To launch the series, I’ve just cooked the courgette pasta with mascarpone, basil and lemon. Alchemy is all I can say, the flavours work beautifully together. In the reel to accompany, I use a mandolin to cut the courgette into very thin strips to cook the same size as the spaghetti, I love how the two tangle as one in the bowl to serve. If you’re worried about using a mandolin - and many are - by all means chop the courgette to size using a knife. A good rule of thumb is to match the size of the chopped courgette to the pasta shape you are cooking.

Courgettes, Zucchini, call them what you will, just be sure to use them lots and lots in your home cookery, starting from now.

I am sharing these recipes at www.5oclockapron.com because I love sharing with this audience how I cook at home. And whilst I also have 10 published cookery books, I’d like for as many people as possible to have access to my recipes. There’s also my reels over on instagram where I post cookery videos which dovetail with all the recipes on my website and in my cookbooks.

I love cooking, and I love writing about food. @5oclockapron, in a nutshell!