Sep 14
2010

Two things:

One, I’m a dork and forgot to take pictures of dinner while I was making it. Sorry. Two: dinner was so good I totally forgot to take pictures of it before it was gone. Hee.

Which is a long way of saying: no pictures today, sorry. But you want to try this, pictures or no. This is fabulous stuff.

Our recipes today hail from La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy. And while this book hasn’t quite yet hit the status of “cookbook I can’t live without”, it’s rapidly heading that direction.  While there are some flaws in the book’s construction, I have nothing but positive words for the recipes so far.

One of the things about Italian cooking is how absurdly simple it can be sometimes. It can be so simple that sometimes you just sort of sit there and go … “wait, why didn’t I think of that?”. But simple recipes demand the best ingredients you can get your hands on, because the recipe relies on the strength of the ingredients, not how well you can whip your materials into shape. Fortunately for us and our fabulous dinner today, I had a plethora of delicious zephyr squash and green-leaf lettuce from my CSA box, and baby onions and “hottie” peppers from my yard.

Marinated Lettuce Salad

This salad is a lot like one my family make s for Christmas Eve, with sliced olives and garlic powder. But we don’t usually marinate that one. La Cucina recommends  a frisee (also known as curly endive or escarole), but notes that you can make it with Romaine or green leaf lettuce. I can state for a fact that it’s delicious with green leaf. Yum.

  • 1 head of firm lettuce, torn into pieces
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 small mildly hot pepper, chopped
  • 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (use the best you have)
  • salt (use the best you have)

Tear the lettuce and place in a large bowl. Mince the garlic and add to the lettuce.

For the pepper:  I used a “Hottie” pepper which is substantially hotter than “mildly hot” (to the tune of “habanero hybrid”), so I used only half of one, seeded it, and removed the membranes, then minced it. The pepper you choose will have a strong effect on the flavor of the salad, so plan accordingly. Hotties are fruity-hot like habaneros, which was pretty darn delicious. Mince the pepper, removing seeds and membranes if you desire, and add to the salad. If you’re sensitive to capsaicin on your fingers, remember to wear gloves when working with hot peppers.

Toss the salad with the olive oil and salt to taste. Find a plate that fits inside your bowl and place it over the lettuce. Weight it down with a can or Mason jar or something else similarly heavy, and cover the salad if you can. Place the whole thing in the fridge and let it rest for at least half an hour, preferably up to a couple of hours. Toss the salad again before serving.

Vegetable Tart (Scarpaccia)

Adapted from La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy

  • extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3/4 lb. small zucchini, preferably with blossoms attached (I used zephyr squash … and probably more like a pound’s worth), sliced into thin rounds. You can use pretty much any summer squash you’d like.
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 c. whole-wheat flour
  • 1/3 c. milk mixed with 1/3 c. water
  • 3 baby onions (not green onions/scallions) thinly sliced into rings (about 3/4 of a small regular onion)
  • 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 425F. Spray a tart pan or baking dish with spray oil or lightly coat with olive oil. Slice the zucchini into rounds, place in a large colander, and sprinkle generously with salt. Allow the zucchini to rest for 20 minutes and let the salt pull some of the liquid out.

Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the tart filling: beat the two eggs together, add the milk and water, and add the flour. Beat well to combine and season with salt and pepper. Slice the onions and mince the garlic. You can also start the Marinated Lettuce Salad now, if you didn’t start it earlier.

When the zucchini is ready, rinse it thoroughly to remove the salt, drain well, and pat it dry. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet or large frying pan, and saute the zucchini until it’s a nice golden brown. Don’t stir too much — it takes a while for that golden crust to form. Just toss the zucchini with the hot oil and let it cook undisturbed for a few minutes, then stir and turn the pieces over to cook the other side. If there are small pieces that look done, fish them out and put them in your greased baking dish while you wait for the rest to finish.

Scoop the zucchini out of the skillet and layer it in the bottom of the greased baking dish. Layer the sliced onions on top of the zucchini, and sprinkle with the minced garlic and Parmesan. Stir up the egg mixture (it’s probably settled a bit) and pour it all around and over the zucchini-onion mixture. Drizzle the tart with 2-3 Tbsp. of olive oil. The tart will be about 1/2-inch thick. Pop it in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

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Jun 21
2010

I did promise a post about that too, didn’t I? Last post for the night, and then I’ll be mostly caught up. (: Thanks for bearing with me!

So like any crazy person who plants zucchini, we’ve already got plenty growing off of just one plant. And of course, there’s some in the CSA box. Well, no offense to the nice folks who run our CSA, but we’re going to eat the home-grown stuff first, ’cause you just can’t get fresher than that.

It was pretty hot this afternoon in sunny SoCal. I really didn’t want to do a lot of cooking after all the out-in-the-sun pruning tomatoes and tying up cucumbers and doing small amounts of helping out with fixing our drip lines and picking fruit and squashes and so forth. (Especially ’cause this morning was also spent being hot out on the roller hockey rink. Whoof. Thirty pounds of goalie gear and 80+ degrees … that’s warm.)

So aside from making the peach-ricotta sandwiches I blogged about earlier, I made a raw zucchini salad. This is actually kind of unusual for me. Typical zucchini side dish in this household is: slice zucchini, chop onions, sauté in olive oil with a couple minced cloves of garlic and a generous sprinkle of oregano until nicely caramelized. I don’t usually like raw zucchini, to be honest — there’s this bitter-slimy flavor that a typical raw zucchini has that’s kinda nasty. But I remembered seeing Giada deLaurentiis doing a raw zucchini and asparagus salad, ages ago, and I’ll admit, I like her style. Everything I’ve ever seen her make has looked fantastic. So I figured … why not? The worst that can happen is I don’t like it raw, and I end up cooking it up anyway.

I’m pleased to note that the zucchini, pattypan squash, onions, and basil all came from my yard. No homegrown garlic — I used the last of it making barbecue sauce for Father’s Day. I am definitely looking forward to planting more garlic this year.

I trawled the web for several zucchini salad recipes, and this is what I ended up making, as kind of a combination of all of the ones I thought looked cool:

Zucchini-Pattypan Salad

Serves 4

  • several baby zucchini and pattypan squash, sliced as thinly as possible (I think I used about four of each — the zucchini were no bigger than two fingers and the pattypans no bigger than an old-school silver dollar)
  • 1 clove garlic, minced fine
  • 1 green onion, finely chopped
  • zest of half a lemon, minced
  • a couple springs of basil, chiffonade
  • juice of half a lemon, plus a little squeeze from the other half
  • really good extra-virgin olive oil — use the best you have
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

You can slice your zucchini paper-thin with a veggie peeler or a mandoline or a knife, whatever you prefer. I used a knife; my mandoline tends to be wasteful. Combine the zucchini with the garlic, green onion, basil, and lemon zest. Drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Cover and chill for about half an hour to allow the flavors to blend.

Raw Zucchini Salad

Light and refreshing!

I was pleasantly surprised! The salad was cool, refreshing, full of flavor, and none of that icky slippery-bitter raw zucchini taste. I’m pretty sure using baby zucchini is a huge part of that; I wouldn’t try making this with the typical big zucchini.

I’d definitely make and eat this salad again. (And I probably will, given that I think I counted four more baby zucchini out there today … ) There were some leftovers, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out, and if it marinates up nicely or if it doesn’t hold well overnight.

I also think this would pair just as nicely with a Japanese meal as it would with an Italian one, though you might want to season it slightly differently. Perhaps with rice vinegar and sesame oil like a cucumber salad. Well, depending on what you’re eating. I think it’d go fine with an unagi rice bowl as-is.

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