Ashy's vegetarian recipes ©2005 all rights reserved
I thought I'd use the American English word (which, of course, is originally Italian) for a change, instead of the British English 'courgette' (which I suppose is originally French). I like the sound of 'zucchini'. The word 'courgette' makes a picture of a white flower with a yellow centre and round, upturned petals appear in my mind. That's okay. It's not the reason I'm making the switch. I just thought I'd say 'zucchini' for a change.
A guy called Guy gave me this recipe but he suggested deep-frying the batter mixture. Deep-frying, however, is something I rarely do. It makes the kitchen smell bad, it makes your hair greasy, I never know what to do with the left over oil once I've used it, I hate cleaning the pan and last but definitely not least, I can never forget the Saturday night I almost burned down the whole block, when I came back from the pub pissed, put the chip-pan on and fell asleep in the armchair.
Here then is much the same recipe as Guy passed on to me, with only the one slight modification in tequnique. I'm going to recommend shallow-frying in just a little oil.
Ingredients
500g zucchini
3 heaped dessertspoons of flour
A level teaspoon of salt
Oil
Grate the zucchini. Put it in a bowl and mix in the salt. Leave to stand for an hour or so, after which the salt will have drawn a lot of water out of the grated zucchini. Mix in the flour and you should have a wet batter. Heat a little oil in a pan and use a dessert spoon to put lumps of the mixture into the pan. Flatten the lumps into thin cakes with the spoon. You should be able to get four small cakes into the pan at one time. Fry on a medium heat for about four minutes each side. The cakes should be golden brown when you turn them over (use a spatula for turning). Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary and repeat with another lot.