July 2012

roast courgette, green bean & fennel salad with puy lentils, zhoug, minted yoghurt and cumin crispbreads

I met a man the other day who told me he met a woman the other week who said that courgettes were the most boring vegetable and there was just nothing to be done for or with the things. The exchange between us was carried on in that air of bewilderment that someone could be so daft. All the more so because we were at the time staring at a courgette plant and looking forward to feasting on one or two of its fruit for dinner. First of the season, and as welcome now as the first asparagus was a few weeks back.

It would make you think, though, would it not? Well, we certainly gave it a good minute and a half of chin-rubbing, brow-furrowed concentration. The courgette, properly a highlight of the height of high summer, has long since become supermarket fodder. The kind of thing you buy to bulk out the oul’ stirfries all year round even though you don’t think much of it. It’s a common fate for a lot of vegetables, including the poor green bean, here partnering the courgette in a feisty salad.

Well, here’s the simple trick to giving back a bit of respect: give them up for six months; and pick or buy them incredibly fresh and of a size that suggests they have little or no seed inside. That’s the total sum of good advice on courgettes. After that, you can eat them raw, gently fried, seared and damn near burned, steamed, roasted and maybe even stewed. They love summer herbs and tomatoes, they love cheeses and nuts; and, for a seemingly delicate creature, they get on fierce well with spices of all kinds.

Here’s a salad to prove it. This is packed with flavour and spice, texture and richness, a good example of where you can go when you look at a fine specimen of a courgette and think “roast courgette with…” If you are so inclined, it would also like a sprinkling of fresh cheese, even a little feta.