Courgette/Zucchini Fritters with Yoghurt Sauce

As so often in the summer, we have a glut of courgettes and the question becomes quite pressing what can be done with them. I had a vague memory about fritters with a kind of Levantine touch. So this is what I tried out – and if it exists in some national or regional cuisine, I can only plead that I worked this out by myself… It has to be said that apart from letting the courgettes sit in salt for twenty minutes, that’s the part that takes the longest: this is a quick meal.

What you need:

• 3 courgettes grated
• 1 tblsp salt
• 1 largish or 2 smaller onions or shallots
• a handful of herbs (parsley, coriander, lovage, thyme, oregano, etc.), in our case from the garden
• 3 eggs beaten
• a generous amount of oil for frying
• 3 good tblsp flour
• 2-300 ml Greek-style yoghurt
• a handful of mint
• 3 cloves garlic
• herb salt and cayenne pepper to taste

What you do:

1. Rub the grated courgettes with the salt and leave to drain in a sieve for at least 20 minutes, then squeeze the excess juice out (the drier the courgettes, the better).
2. In the meantime chop the herbs (without the mint) and the onion(s)/shallots, and mix with the eggs and the flower.
3. Add the grated courgettes and season to taste (salt and pepper, perhaps a touch of curry powder or, my option, Cajun spice).
4. In a frying pan, heat the oil and when it is hot, fry the fritters for about 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Drain of the excess fat with kitchen paper.
5. For the yoghurt sauce, chop the peppermint finely, squash the garlic and mix with the yoghurt, then season with herb salt and cayenne pepper.

Spanish Omelette with Bean Stew

Today was remarkable because my son Andri, who realises that, along with writing a song, cooking for a lady is a pretty good way to her heart, really did much of the work, from chopping to cooking.

What you need

• 200 g of dried kidney beans, soaked overnight and cooked until still pretty firm.
• 5 largish potatoes, peeled and sliced thinly
• 4-5 eggs
• 2 onions/shallots, one diced finely, the other quartered and sliced
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
• 150 ml white wine
• 1 tbsp Berbere
• 250 ml tomato passata or chopped peeled tomatoes (supplemented with a tbsp tomato puree to thicken the stew if necessary)
• 1 bell pepper in strips
• salt and pepper to taste
• optionally ½ to 1 finely diced chilli pepper

What you do

1. Fry the diced onion and the sliced potatoes in a generous dash olive oil until golden or lightly brown.
2. Beat the eggs, add salt and pepper to taste and pour over the onions and potatoes.
3. Cook on a low flame until the top of the egg is dry, then using a plate to flip over and fry on the other side.
4. In the meantime sauté the onion and garlic slices in some more olive oil until the garlic begins to look crispy.
5. Add the beans and the berbere as well as some salt and keep stirring.
6. Pour in the wine and allow to reduce for a couple of minutes, then add the tomato passata.
7. Allow to simmer while the omelette is fully fried.
8. Add the bell pepper strips and the chilli, if using, thicken with tomato purée should the stew be too liquidy.
9. Season to taste.

My Great-Grandmothers Fruitbake (with Quinces)

My great-grandmother lived near the station of Switzerland’s train hub, Olten, was widowed relatively early, her husband having been a train driver, and clearly wasn’t rolling in money, but loved cooking and enjoyed her food; sometimes when her Grandmother got hungry in the evening, my mum tells me, she had to go to the restaurant next door to buy a litre of “montagner”, the cheapest red wine, to accompany a late night snack of cheese and bread.

The following recipe, which reflects the make-do spirit as well as the love of good food, has been in our family for as long as I can remember, and I have fond memories of coming home, finding this dish on the table, usually for supper, steaming once the crust was broken, but also with the promise of a lovely snack, cold, sometime in the following days, if indeed it survived that long.

The use of steamed fruit of any kind, rhubarb in early summer, plums, apricots and peach a bit later on, apples, pears and quince in autumn, make this a seasonally adaptable dish. In earlier times, steamed fruit would have been preserved in large glass jars and kept for later; we can of course use the fruit we freeze seasonally for later in the year.

What you need

• Steamed fruit (I used quince as we have masses of the this year) to cover the bottom of a ceramic baking dish
• 4 egg yolks
• 200 g sugar
• 250 g ground almonds (optionally substitute a portion of walnuts, I did because we have loads this year)
• 4 egg whites, whisked
• rind of 1 (organic) lemon
• sugar (brown) to sprinkle over the top

What you do

1. Cut the fruit into bite-sized slices or junks, add a bit of lemon juice to prevent browning and sugar to taste, add some water (not enough to cover the fruit) and simmer in a lidded pan until it is still firm, but not hard.
2. Pour a layer of fruit into a buttered baking dish, making sure it is not too watery. (the excess liquid, reduced with a bit of white wine and perhaps additional sugar, makes a good accompanying sauce.
3. Beat the egg yolks and the sugar until they are quite frothy, then add the ground almonds.
4. Grate the rind of one organic lemon over the mixture.
5. Fold in the whisked egg whites, making sure that the mixture remains as light and “fluffy” as possible.
6. Pour the mixture over the steamed fruit and sprinkle lightly with a bit of sugar (I didn't, as you can see, have brown sugar).
7. Bake in the oven at 200° for 35 minutes.

 

 

 

 

Remarks

I had a little Vin Santo, a sweetish Italian wine left, which I poured over the quinces together with the water and the sugar. Once I had taken the fruit out I added the peels, cores and the pips and boiled the syrup for a little longer as these act like a setting agent, making the liquid slightly jelly-like.

 To serve,  heat up the surplus liquid from the steamed fruit to pour over the helpings.

This dish freezes very well, so if you make twice what you need you can easily put another portion in the oven to warm up at a later stage.