Marijo Jordan
"As it happens with white or black clothes in the wardrobe, in the kitchen, it is a wild card that is not too tasty or spectacular, but very versatile and healthy." This is how the Galician chef specializing in vegetables, Gerson Iglesias, describes the zucchini. A vegetable with as much water as little fat, which can get us out of a thousand and one troubles due to its great capacity to be cooked in multiple ways. That if sautéed, stuffed, in a rich tortilla... and even as a dessert it can be fabulous if you know how to treat it.
We are going to review the basic secrets of its preparation while discovering how elongated, round and mini courgettes differ. The world of these delicate cousins of the pumpkin and the melon gives a lot of play. Should we cook them for hours like the grandmothers did? How do we get them not to get dehydrated? What type of zucchini is the ideal for a cream? Is its soft skin edible? Can we keep them many days? How do we cook a zucchini flower?
Unlike tomatoes or potatoes, of which we know many varieties, courgettes have a very basic commercial classification. We do not know them by their last names, although they have them. "The seed companies modify them every one or two years, giving rise to small changes, including the names, but they are very technical," says Jaume Flores, president of the Mercabarna fruit and vegetable wholesalers (Agem) and director of the company. Flowers. We recognize them by their shapes and colors.
In general, there are the green courgettes -the most common-, the white ones -chunker than the green one and very fine on the palate-, the black ones, the round ones and the mini-sized ones. The choice is according to the personal taste of the consumer and also by area. "There are areas such as Barcelona, Lleida and Tarragona where greens are consumed more, unlike some areas of Girona or, for example, the Guadalquivir delta where white is very popular." This does not exclude the possibility of finding some curious native local variety such as some very ugly-looking but very tasty white courgettes that are grown in a part of Menorca.
As it happened with yellow –“it hasn't been seen for many years”-, black is in recession. The reason may be that his appearance is less attractive than the rest "because of his dark and matte skin," explains Jaume Flores. On the other hand, the round ones - "about the size of a tennis ball" - are very fashionable due to their curious shape, which allows playful and original presentations. Mini courgettes are also increasingly popular because, being more tender and watery, they are very tasty raw, a trend that is on the rise. Like buying zucchini flowers.
A ripe zucchini looks radiant. It must not have bumps, stains or scratches. The leather, which is thin and susceptible to scratches, must be uniform and shiny, “the brighter the color, the better”, says Jaume Flores. That is the best indication that it is not dehydrated, since when it ages its color fades. Another good clue is the thickness: "The bigger you find it, the older it will be because the vegetable does not stop growing on the plant." In other words, you should not choose them if they are the size of pumpkins, which, by the way, are part of their family.
The measurement of the long green zucchini is about 30 cm. Keep in mind that the white one is a little thicker, but it is highly appreciated because it has finer seeds than the green one. To get an idea, "if we compare a green one with the caliber of a white one, we will see that it has too thick seeds." We are in the middle of the courgette season -from May to the end of October- and we must take advantage of it.
Although the expert reminds us that in Spain we are self-sufficient in this production, from which we do not need to import because we have our own supply throughout the year. The remaining six months of cold reach us those grown mainly in the greenhouses of Almería. "The most important thing to get a good product, whether or not it is local, is to buy it at its optimum ripening moment and not take long to consume it," explains the expert.
Courgettes, unlike aubergines, can be eaten raw. "If you don't want to cook, you have to choose them tender with the soft skin," says Gerson Iglesias, chef expert in vegetables who directs the gastronomy of the Oca Vila de Allariz hotel (Ourense). Jaume Flores advises us to resort to mini courgettes, about 10 cm long, to have more guarantees of a smooth texture, although they are somewhat more expensive.
"To make the most of it, squeezing out its flavour, I would make the minis whole, grilled or candied," says Iglesias. What is absurd is buying them to make creams because, being smaller, you need many. One of the cook's favorite dishes with zucchini is using it raw to make noodles (or spaghetti) by finely chopping the raw vegetable and giving it a brief heat stroke. They can also be cut into strips and eaten as crudités with sauces.
On the other hand, the skin of the zucchini -where many nutrients are concentrated- is totally edible, and only requires a gentle wash with water. “European agriculture is very aware and controlled in the use of toxics. In Mercabarna, for example, monthly analyzes are made of many national products and we never find anything harmful,” says Flores.
Bad news. Zucchini is not the joy of the garden. Although it gives a lot of play, it is not tasty. Not even sweet or bitter. “Its flavor is not its best quality, it is neither good nor bad,” says Gerson Iglesias, who sees something positive in it: it forces us to work a little hard to achieve a suggestive and rich preparation. For example? Well, give it a smoky touch by grilling it, accompany it with sauces or cook it with spices.
One of the ways in which it can be made more insipid is by boiling it, so if we do it this way it is advisable to "use a powerful vegetable, meat or fish broth, even water with soy so that they give the zucchini a cable giving it flavor" . By the way, if we boil it, at the end it is advisable to put it in ice water "so that the chlorophyll of the skin does not turn off and that it preserves its color". Another thing is zucchini flowers, which Harold McGee describes as a vegetable with a “musky and complex aroma, with green, almond, spicy, violet and barnyard notes”.
Versatility is the great advantage of zucchini. It's bland but it goes very well with multiple ingredients, and it can be cooked in a thousand ways. It would be a big mistake not to play at making it in different ways: baked, sautéed, steamed, in a salad, in an omelette... This vegetable, which is part of the famous French ratatouille, adds a lot of flavor to batter and tempura. They can be filled in the oven, and gratin on top with cheese to give them life, "or cut them in the shape of a trunk, remove the seeds and fill them like a cannelloni".
It is very fashionable to stuff round courgettes for their beautiful presentation. “The luck is that this vegetable goes with many things, be it minced meat, prawns…”. There are even typical dishes that contain it, such as the Murcian zarangollo, a rich vegetable-based cuisine. Gerson points out that you can even make desserts, such as jams or vegan chocolate brownies. Nor can we forget the courgette flower, a booming product, as both Flores and Gerson point out. They can be made in tempura, fried, stewed and stuffed with mozzarella, mushroom mousse... "The flower holds up well, it's like the five fingers of the hand together".
When the courgette is tender and young, it has a high water content, which we are interested in preserving during cooking. A good advice that Gerson gives us to get it if we bake it is not to cut it. We introduce it whole so that it stays hydrated until the end, with a little oil on the skin and some spices. Likewise, zucchini tends to absorb a lot of oil, as happens with aubergines, so it is advisable not to overuse it when roasting or frying this vegetable from the corcubitaceae family, which also includes cucumber, pumpkin, melon and watermelon.
If we are going to fry it, the expert chef in vegetables, Iolanda Bustos, advises us to cover the vegetable with extra virgin olive oil "because it is the only one that manages to create a layer of fat around it, preventing the oil from entering". "We have to take advantage of the fact that courgette is high in fiber, with no fat and that it has multiple nutritional qualities, quite a few vitamins and some minerals," Gerson tells us to encourage us to eat it without restrictions of any kind.
It is important not to cook long zucchini. Although the kitchen of the grandmothers with which we grew up tended to abuse the time in the pot, today cooks are committed to controlling very well the minutes of contact with the fire to better preserve the flavors and also the nutritional qualities of the fruits from the orchard. In the case of zucchini, if it is sautéed, a few seconds may already be enough.
If it is rare, it has an interesting texture, a bit crunchy. “If you overdo it, it loses water and there is too much waste for my liking,” says Gerson. If it is baked, Gerson recommends not exceeding 7 or 10 minutes because it will lose its essence and it will be mashed. In the case of making a combination of roasted vegetables, we must cut larger those that are passed before and smaller those that take longer. “Depending on which dishes it is advisable to chop it small and put it in when there are five minutes left”.
Zucchini in the fridge is better apart from fruits and tomatoes because it is sensitive to ethylene. We have to store it without washing and try not to dehydrate. "There are bags that help to achieve this, but I prefer to wrap them in a damp cloth -not wet-, a trick that works very well," explains Flores.
The expert recommends eating them as soon as possible to avoid losing water. Zucchini is affected by both cold and heat. After a week, it shrivels, loses flavor and can show various defects. Once cooked, zucchini "holds up well for a couple of days nutritionally, although its appearance and texture deteriorate quite a bit, so it's best eaten as soon as it's done," says Gerson.
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