Stuffed zucchini

This recipe is a bit of a variation on stuffed zucchini that my mom has made since I was a little kid. I love potatoes and think that little cubes of it are fantastic in this rich and lemony tomato sauce, so I added them and the mint and chile flakes to zip it up a bit.

You can make this dish vegan by skipping the ground beef and using more rice and more of the zucchini innards for your stuffing. You an also add some slices of eggplant to the sauce to give it more texture. (Be sure to salt them first).

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 fat zukes

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 tomatoes, sliced thickly

1 cup passata

250 g ground beef

3 tbsp chopped parsley

1/3 cup cooked rice

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 potatoes, cut into small cubes

2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Pinch of chile flakes

Juice of half a lemon

4 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Carefully cut the zukes in half and scoop out the inside. Be careful to get as much of the flesh as you can but not to make any holes in the skin. Roughly chop and then reserve the pulp. Put the zukes aside.

To prepare the filling, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a medium-sized frying pan. Add half the onions and sautee for a few minutes until they start to turn brown. Add half the garlic and sautee for another minute.

Add the ground beef to the pan and brown. Add the tomato paste, about 1/3 of the chopped zucchini pulp, rice, mint, parsley, chile flakes, salt and pepper. Then add about 1/3 cup of water so your tomato paste has enough liquid to mix well into the other ingredients. Cook the whole mixture for about 10-12 minutes until it’s just cooked.  Put aside to cool.

In a large, flat-bottom oven-proof pot (it needs to be big enough to lay out your zukes as well as go in the oven), heat up the remainder of the olive oil. Sautee onions and garlic as above.

Turn the heat down to med-low. Carefully add the passata so you don’t get splattered. Lay the tomato slices (and eggplant if you're using it) on the bottom of the pot, add the rest of the chopped zucchini pulp, lemon juice, potato cubes, salt, and pepper. Bring to the boil.

In the meantime, take the cooled filling and carefully spoon it into the zucchini shells.

Place the stuffed zukes on top of the vegetable mixture in the pot and reduce the temperature to low.Simmer covered for about 20 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F.  After 20 minutes, turn off the burner and remove the cover from the pot. Put the pot in the oven uncovered to cook for about another 20 minutes. 

When it's ready, the dish should be a bit brown on top, and the veggies (particularly the potaotoes) all soft. Depending on the water content of the zukes, you may want to remove them from the sauce and boil it down for a thicker sauce or just serve it as is.

Serve with rice, smothered in the rich cooking sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.

© Gail J. Cohen 2018

Salata de berenjena (Eggplant salad)

Salata de berenjena is one of those dishes my family has been eating ever since I was a little kid and was definitely not something I enjoyed back then. But as a ‘grown up’ I love it. Simple, fresh ingredients that with a little TLC yield a spectacularly tasty appetizer or side dish.

This salad is also a great way to use up the less-than-perfect tomatoes from the garden at the end of the season.

It’s not a traditional salad but more along the lines of a ratatouille as almost everything is cooked. The salata is not something I make very often because it’s quite time consuming ̶ and really my parents have always made fabulous versions of it, so why mess with someone else’s success? Below is my dad’s version of this traditional Sephardi Jewish vegetable salad.

Leave yourself a bit of time – maybe 1.5 hours – to prepare it as there’s lots of slicing and frying. It’s also best made a day ahead but at the least in the morning if you’re going to have it for dinner. The vegetables need to marinate to realize their full deliciousness.

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, peeled and sliced
3 green or red peppers
3 tomatoes, thickly sliced
3 small potatoes, sliced
2 tbsp chopped parsley
oil for frying

Dressing:

1/3 cup white vinegar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp salt

The slices of eggplant should be about 1 cm thick.  Salt and place in a colander to drain for 30 minutes.

While the eggplant is doing its thing, put your oven on broil with the rack near (but not right at) the top. Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds, and place skin up on a foil-covered baking tray in the oven for 15 minutes. Bake until they are tender and their skin is charred and blistered. Remove from the oven and let cool, then peel and slice.

Start frying your potatoes in a large, non-stick frying pan. Don’t be shy with the oil but you are not deep frying them either. Continue to add frying oil as you need it along the way. Cook the potato disks to a lovely golden brown and drain on some absorbent paper when they’re ready.

Those who know more than I do suggest dipping the eggplant in a bit of milk before frying it so it absorbs less oil. I do it but can’t actually attest to whether it makes a difference. Either way, fry the slices of eggplant until they’ve got a little bit of black on each side (key says my dad) and then drain on some paper.

Gently fry the tomatoes. You want them a bit soft but if you fry them too long they’ll just turn into mush, so don’t overdo it.

Once everything is fried and cooled, layer the potato, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes in a glass or ceramic dish. Sprinkle the parsley generously on the top. Mix the dressing and pour over the vegetables.

Let it cool completely before covering with cling wrap. If you are leaving it overnight, you can put it in the fridge but be sure to take it out a couple of hours before serving because it should be at room temperature for maximum flavour. Just before serving toss the salad gently to get all the flavours mixed up but without making the vegetables into pulp.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen