I've been flicking through my cookbooks lately and noticed how recipes, or rather ingredients, have changed over the last 30 years. The gem was in "The Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook" I'd bought in about 1983. It offers 3 recipes under the heading of Vegetables:
Potato Scallops
Chips
French Fried Onion Rings
All deep fried and only the chips weren't dipped in batter before frying.
Prawns on the Barbie? - no they're deep fried too. If the food wasn't deep fried then it was cooked in lashings of butter and cream.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, for those in the Northern Hemisphere who find themselves inundated with Zucchini here is another idea for cooking them.
Zucchini Paste
Coarsely grate 1 kilo of zuccs. Meanwhile heat 4 tablespoons (can use less) of a good Olive oil in the base of a solid, fairly big saucepan. Once heated to medium add the zuccs, stir and turn down the heat. Do not cover. Continue to cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until all the liquid had evaporated. Season with Salt and Pepper.
Now let it cool then eat on crostini or bruschetta. Alternatively use as a dip or basis for a dip. Add stock and blend or leave as is as a soup - I add risoni.
Is great for entertaining (as long as you can stop yourself from scoffing it all down first) and for using up over-large zuccs that are threatening to become marrows. I like to replace the olive oil with avocado oil (yummo).
Added bonus - moggies unlikey to fancy it.
Now I'm hungry. Huggles and happy eating
Mickle's Pickle: from our World's Southern most Capital City.
6 comments:
Yummo indeed, I would add some garlic,crushed and some herbs ,then it would be like a green paste for bruschetta:)
Hi Sylv, mmm, nice thought. Yes my recipe is just a starting point. In a few months time zuccs will be in season here and I'll be experimenting.
Huggles xxx
Gotta laugh at BLOGGERs time recording - I posted this late afternoon on Thursday, the 28th
I shall try this on my precious Huntly & Palmers Sesameal crackers so lovingly smuggled back from home (via Australia!)
I had to laugh - your old Ausi Women sounded like they might have come from Texas!
When we lived there you had to go a long way to find fresh veg. In the cafes the vegetables listed were french fries, BBQ beans, onion rings, and macaroni and cheese! Occasionally there would be very sickly pale canned green beans which had been cooked for hours with some pork fat back, and served up slimy and swimming in the fat.
A friend I met there said," The 4 basic Texas food groups are: Fried, Mashed, Brown, and Sweet!"
Culinary Siberia.
BTW your use for excess zucs sounds like I need to try it. This time of year there is always someone trying to give away the extras from their garden. Sylvie's addition of herbs sounds nice. I think I'll try some Summer Savory.
Polly makes a great tea loaf with zucs. If you want, I could get her to send it to you.
It's interesting you call them zucchini in NZ. In England they are called courgettes.
Antipo - you smuggled them back and they're whole?. In the unseasoned state even Popo might eat some of the zucc paste!
Prscilla - here they are known as courgettes and as zucchinis. Now to really confuse matters the member of the same plant family called pattipans in the UK are are called scalopinni (sic) or baby squash in NZ and Aus.
Yes please to Polly's recipe
Hugs and care to France and Portland
Post a Comment