zucchini

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Zucchini and friends: late summer’s greatest plate-mates

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By Leslie Brenner

Nature has a remarkable ability to create harmony on a plate. That’s why if you stick with what’s emphatically in season, it’s hard to go wrong.

This time of year, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, okra and corn are bountiful in American markets and gardens, and they’re incredibly easygoing. Throw them together in nearly any combination in pan or on grill, their flavors start singing, and everybody wins.

You might think of zucchini as their bandleader. Cartoonishly prolific in late summer, the affable summer squash plays well with everyone. So do tomato, its umami-packed pal, and peppers, whether sweet or hot. They’re all Meso-American in origin, as is corn. Zucchini is a cultivar of Cucurbito pepo, which gardeners have been growing in parts of what’s now Texas and all over Mexico for 8,000 to 10,000 years.

Okra is in peak season as well. Not a native to the Americas, its appearance here was diasporic; it was grown by in the Carolinas by enslaved African people. Today, stateside, it’s mostly grown in Florida and Texas.

Eggplant is also an immigrant to America, having traveled here — and to the Mediterranean — from Asia. Botanically it’s a cousin to tomatoes and peppers, all being nightshades.

So, how to throw them together deliciously?

Try a shrimp sauté with zucchini, tomato and corn, like the one shown above. It shows best with wild shrimp from the Gulf, which the Meso-Americans would also have enjoyed. Our recipe includes serrano chiles, crisply grilled okra and lots of cilantro, but it’s endlessly riffable. Recently I skipped the okra, swapped the serranos for sweet, mild red bell pepper, and used fresh basil in place of cilantro — giving it a Cal-Italian vibe.

Shrimp sauté with zucchini, corn, red bell pepper and basil

RECIPE: Shrimp Sauté with Texas Veg

Whether you’re doing a shrimp sauté (chicken works great too) with this group of veg, or just throwing the vegetable pals together in a pan, herbs and spices can add pizzazz and depth. Besides cilantro and basil, thyme, parsley, marjoram, oregano work great with these guys.

Oregano is front-and-center in one of my all-time favorite dishes by Yotam Ottolenghi, Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa. Cherry tomatoes and lemon zest add bright exclamation points. Enriched with egg and rounded out with breadcrumbs, it makes a fine main course, as well as a spectacular accompaniment to grilled lamb or chicken. The dish may have been born across the pond, but it’s very much at home on either side of it.

Stuffed zucchini (courgettes) with pine-nut salsa from Ottolenghi Simple

Zucchini and friends, Mediterranean-style

What if eggplant is one of the friends? Think Mediterranean, and reach for a roasted ratatouille.

Why roasted? Disenchanted with watery, soggy renditions of the French favorite, I thought maybe sending the eggplant, peppers, zucchini and garlic into the oven for a spell would deepen their flavors and keep them more distinct.

It did indeed, and now I’d never make ratatouille any other way.

It’s a delightful dish for summer-into-fall.

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Zucchini coming out of your ears? These 8 stupendous dishes will make you wish you had 5 more pounds

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Stuffed zucchini (courgettes) with pine-nut salsa from Ottolenghi Simple

Summer Produce Special, Part II: Zucchini

We feel your zucchini abundance-state here at Cooks Without Borders, where we’ve been grating, shaving, slicing, dicing, salting, draining, sautéing, roasting, steaming and sashimi-ing zucchini round the clock to help you make the most of the season’s inevitable bumper crop.

• One dish — Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa — is so outstanding it shook the two courgette-fatigued fellows with whom I shelter out of their summer-squash stupor.

“Amazing,” said the older one. “I would eat this again tomorrow!” (We did.)

“Wow,” said the younger. “Whose recipe is this?” Ottolenghi’s, I replied — from his 2018 cookbook Ottolenghi Simple. “He is a genius,” proclaimed the younger zucchini critic.

I had been skating on thin ice with the vegetable when this show-stopper saved us. It was maybe only day 3 of zucchini trials, but junior and elder had already hit the zucchini wall. They are weak, after all, and lack summer squash stamina.

I had set my sights, this particular evening, on two possible Ottolenghi recipes. The exhausted eating panel chose the Stuffed Zucchini, pictured above. Excellent call: Its filling is rich with Parmesan and egg, bright with height-of-season heirloom cherry tomatoes, plumped with bread crumbs and set with a golden-brown crust inside a perfectly roasted shell that maintained integrity but melted at fork’s touch. On top of that, a deeply herbal salsa — at once dusky (oregano) and bright (thanks to lemon) — made meaty and crunchy with toasted pine nuts.

Do try it; I think you’ll love it. It’s so delicious, you can let it stand proudly as centerpiece main dish, even probably for dyed-in-the-wool carnivores. (But oh, yes, it would also be great with lamb. Or chicken.)

Once your swooning subsides, consider the possibilities for your next zucchini triumph. For you know there will be more zucchini!

Here are other faves:

• Raw Zucchini Salad with Green Olives, Mint and Pecorino. I first learned the joys of raw zucchini in the early 00’s from Russ Parsons, the L.A. Times’ longtime columnist (“The California Cook”), who taught us that salting thin-sliced or shaved raw zucchini and letting it sit a few minutes turns it delightfully silky and slippery, seeming almost to cook the flesh while keeping it firm.

For years I had a Parsons salad in my arsenal and pulled it out often. Slice zucchinis in half vertically, then cut them into thin half-moons. Toss with salt in a colander and let sit for 15 or 20 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and dress with minced garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, freshly ground black pepper or red pepper flakes and fresh herbs — mint is especially nice, but you can do any combo of mint, dill, parsley or basil. The Ottolenghi recipe makes me think oregano would be smashing as well.

Raw Zucchini Salad with Green Olives, Mint and Pecorino from A16 Food + Wine

Raw Zucchini Salad with Green Olives, Mint and Pecorino from A16 Food + Wine

Nate Appleman and Shelly Lindgren took the salting-raw-zucchini technique to delicious heights in a recipe published in their 2008 cookbook, A16 Food + Wine, named for their beloved Southern Italian spot in San Francisco. Their salad marries ribbons of zucchini carpaccio with a brilliant trio of complementary flavors. I’d never have thought of green olives and mint together, but the combination sings — especially with the bright, pure flavor of Castelvetrano olives (green Cerignolas would be great, too). Earthy pecorino smooths it out and pulls it together.

• We’ve been thinking about Barry’s Insanely Delicious Zucchini Fritters since test-driving the recipes in José Andrés’ Vegetables Unleashed led us to a zucchini fritter recipe that didn’t quite do it for us (the batter was thin and the fritters ran all over the pan). Barry’s Insanely Delicious are little flavor-bombs, soft and packed with herbs (dill, mint and parsley) on the inside, crisp on the outside and warm, served with a cool and tangy yogurt sauce. Pop one in your mouth and it’s hard to stop there. They’re brilliant bites for your next Zoom Happy Hour, if that’s still a thing.

Barry’s Insanely Delicious Zucchini Fritters

Barry’s Insanely Delicious Zucchini Fritters

• Speaking of José Andrés, another zucchini recipe in that cookbook turned out to be one of our favorites ever: Grilled Zucchini with Lots of Herbs. It’s as simple and wonderful as it sounds and looks, with a sprinkle of za’atar — the Levantine herb and spice mix — to keep things zippy.

Grilled Zucchini with Lots of Herbs from José Andrés’ ‘Vegetables Unleashed’

Grilled Zucchini with Lots of Herbs from José Andrés’ ‘Vegetables Unleashed’

Camarón con Fideos de Calabacita (Shrimp with Zucchini Ribbons) from Anán Medrano’s ‘Count the Tortillas’

Camarón con Fideos de Calabacita (Shrimp with Zucchini Ribbons) from Anán Medrano’s ‘Count the Tortillas’

• Another dish that probably has roots in the Texas Mexican cooking known as comida casera, Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken is an easy, delicious pseudo-braise that makes luscious use of abundant zucchini (and any other summer squash that needs a home), along with corn, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and serrano chile. It has been one of my favorite late-summer dishes since I was a kid growing up far from Texas, in Southern California. (It’s a pseudo-braise because you don’t actually add liquid; the juices that end up braising all come from the vegetables.)

Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken (the chicken formerly known as The Chicken that Killed Grandpa)

Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken (the chicken formerly known as The Chicken that Killed Grandpa)

• A super-flexible dish we call Warm Summer Salad Without Borders is another late summer stunner — and a great way to feature as much zucchini as you want to throw at it, along with grilled corn, tomatoes and — if you like — grilled okra. It makes a lovely light dinner when it’s still blazing hot, or a warm pick-me-up for when you’re a little sad the season is on the way out.

And hey — I sometimes toss some grilled okra on top of Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken, too. The Warm Summer Salad is kind of like a vegetarian salad version of that dish.

Warm Summer Salad Without Borders

Warm Summer Salad Without Borders

• Last but certainly not least — as it’s one of my favorite things in the world to cook and to eat — a Chicken and Lamb Couscous will usher summer into fall, pulling a pound or two of zucchinis in its wake. As the season changes, keep it in mind. We offer an easy version that uses canned garbanzos and five-minute couscous grains and slower OG version that has you soak dried chickpeas overnight and steam and fluff the couscous grains two or three times. Both are tucked into the same recipe, as you might want to combine them (dried chickpeas + quick couscous grains, for instance). On our to-do list: Creating or turning up a stellar harissa recipe.

Chicken and Lamb Couscous (with . . . zucchini!)

Chicken and Lamb Couscous (with . . . zucchini!)

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When life deals you zucchini, make these insanely delicious Greek fritters

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It happens to everyone at one point or another: You find yourself with zucchini coming out of your ears. Maybe you have a garden, and it's the end of summer. Maybe your friend has a garden, and she's gifted several pounds of giant veg to you. Maybe the heirlooms at the farmers market were so pretty you bought too many. 

Whatever it is, after a lifetime of looking for delicious things to do with the cartoonishly prolific summer squash, I've found it: The most insanely delicious zucchini dish ever. 

Barry making scottiglia in my mom and Warren's kitchen in Malibu

The fritter is the creation of my step-cousin Barry Kalb, who is a gifted cook, a former journalist and restaurateur and an all-around amazing person with a super-interesting story. 

Barry moved to Hong Kong in 1975 to work for NBC News, then became a staff correspondent for CBS News before heading to West Berlin in 1979 as Eastern Europe bureau chief for Time magazine. His Time gig later took him to Rome, then New York and eventually back to Hong Kong. In 1987, still in Hong Kong, he quit journalism and became a restaurateur – opening Marco Polo Pizza, the first "genuine, Italian-style" pizzeria there. The following year, he opened what he describes as the first authentic Italian restaurant in Hong Kong – Il Mercato, in the Stanley Market on the south side of Hong Kong Island. He ran it until 2002, when he returned to journalism, as an editor at Voice of America's Hong Kong bureau. 

These days Barry is writing fiction; he just published his second novel, a mystery – Chop Suey: A Tale of Hong Kong, China and the Chinese People.  (I'm not usually one for mysteries, but I'm looking forward to diving into this one!) He and his wife Suzi divide their time between Hong Kong and Thailand; they have a house in Phuket, which is where he was when my mom died in June. Barry flew out for her memorial (which we held, with lots of food and wine, at my mom's favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant) and to spend some extended time with Warren. 

To soothe ourselves and each other, we cooked. We needed comfort food. One night I made my mom's chicken curry, a family favorite. Another night Barry made a wonderful Italian braised meat dish, scottiglia con polenta – preceded by Greek-style zucchini fritters so delicious they blew us all away. 

Barry's zucchini fritters

Why Greek-style?  Barry fell in love with the fritters that inspired them in Greece, where he and Suzi are building a house – on the island of Meganisi, south of Corfu, just off the larger island of Lefkada. "When we arrive in Lefkada, en route to Meganisi," says Barry, "we always head for our favorite restaurant on the island, Margarita's, which serves the best zucchini balls we've found anywhere in Greece (and which introduced us to the dish)." It was this fritter than Barry set out to recreate. What sets them apart from other zucchini fritters is tons of chopped fresh herbs – mint and dill and parsley – along with a healthy dose of crumbled feta. 

I think you'll love them, and they're easy to make. You grate the zucchini on a box grater, sprinkle it with salt, let it sit for an hour, then squeeze out the liquid. Mix the zucchini with egg, breadcrumbs, the crumbled feta, herbs, ground cumin and pepper, form the mixture into patties, dredge them in flour, and fry them on both sides in olive oil. 

Barry's were pretty big – about three inches, with a shape like a flattened ball – and required a fork to eat, which I'm guessing is how you eat them at Margarita's. (I hope I have the occasion to find out one day!) 

For my adaptation, I made them a little smaller – finger food – and added tangy yogurt sauce with punched with lemon zest, which is wonderful with the minty thing the fritter has going for it. Got zucchini? You want this recipe:

Do try it, and let us know what you think!