orWine Tastings in the Comfort of you own villa or B&B while on holiday in Tuscany or Liguria

To book an informative and fun wine tasting whilst holidaying in Italy or arrange for a wild food walk in your area contact me on tuscanytipple at libero dot it or check out my Facebook page

Total Pageviews

Saturday 10 July 2010

What to do with too many courgettes


It's the time of year again where we're struggling with a glut of courgettes. Here's my method of preserving most for at least a couple of weeks:

Roast Courgette sott'olio

  1. Slice courgettes diagonally to about 5mm slices.
  2. Heat a griddle pan to very hot and add just a drop of vegetable or sunflower oil (olive oil tends to burn at high temperatures and you might end up with courgette flambée). Throw in a single layer of courgette slices, sprinkle with salt, pepper, rosemary and chopped garlic. Grill a few minutes on both sides until done and clear juices run when you press a wooden spatula on top.
  3. Place the slices into a bowl with white wine vinegar. While doing the next batch, turn the slices in the vinegar ensuring both sides are covered, then place in a sealable plastic container.
  4. Repeat until you have used up all the courgettes. Cover with good quality olive oil and store in the fridge until needed. Not sure how long it lasts like this, but not very long in our household. If put into sealable jars and sterilised in a water bath, it maybe possible to store it for the winter, but haven't tried that yet.
  5. Makes an excellent antipasto or mixed with some pasta as a primo.
  6. You can also treat aubergines and peppers in the same way and make a mixed roast antipasto. Oh and, whilst it does use up quite a bit of expensive olive oil, you can of course re-use the left-over oil afterwards having acquired a nice rosemary and garlic flavour.

3 comments:

chaiselongue said...

Sounds like a delicious idea and I'll try it. The only trouble is, if they only last a few weeks, during those few weeks we'll still have too many courgettes growing every day! Last year we found that pickling them in a sort of chutney with tomatoes and onions was the best way of preserving them. We ate them as an accompaniment to meat all through the winter and the texture of the courgette was much better preserved than when you freeze them.

Ayak said...

Brilliant idea...thanks xx

Mr. H. said...

That actually sounds quite good, what time is dinner?:) I'm still waiting on our zucchini but the plants are finally starting to grow...soon I hope.