‘Is there pork mince in here?’ he asked. I eyed him sceptically, not sure whether he was serious.
This is the third part in a three-part courgette: blossom to leaf series. In the second part we looked at how deep browning makes courgette a contender for taking on pork cheek. And here we share a courgette-flower filling that took us completely by surprise with it’s taste. Generally we like our veggies to taste like veggies, but if you cook for meat lovers who need a certain savoury flavour profile to feel satisfied, you want to read this.
It was on finding a courgette or two and a handful of Hungarian peppers still knocking about the fridge and thinking about how to use them, that I remembered a comment by Lulu: ‘I don’t think that meat makes any sense in stuffed vegetables’.1 So I took the point to heart by making her filling for courgette flowers, and stuffing it into the peppers.
From a practical point of view, I like the sentiment: use the courgettes themselves to fill the flowers. And all the other ingredients are likely to be in stock at home: onions, garlic, breadcrumbs, olive oil. I served them for supper and we each cut a piece, becoming quiet as we tasted the first bite.
Brandon spoke first. ‘Is there pork mince in this?’ he asked. I eyed him sceptically, not sure whether he was serious. Once I’d established that he absolutely was, I could start to see (or taste, rather) where he was coming from, that without knowing exactly what was in the filling, it might give that impression.
To be 100 percent sure, I made it again, this time spooning the filling into courgette blossoms as Lulu did. We had the same reaction. The texture came close to a cooked commercial banger and it tasted like pork stuffing. And in this case the courgette flowers acted like little sausage casings – courgette chipolatas?
The only vaguely meat-related thing in there was anchovies. It wasn’t so much a secret ingredient as a quietly genius combination.
The carbonara experience, slow cooking, and now the stuffing, all suggested that combining courgettes with the likes of Pecorino and anchovies creates a kind of sweet meatiness – which, I guess is how you might describe pork. It’s their unique vegetal sweetness plus the salty-savoury ingredients that seems to do the trick.
I’m loathe to create too much expectation but the conclusion we came to is that a courgette can deliver surprisingly meaty flavours if you’re seeking that out of veg. Our audience for the courgetti spaghetti were, as they’re vegetarians who converted based on personal beliefs, not a distaste for meat.
They love a plant-based sausage from the high-profile brand also known for it’s burger patty, precisely because it tastes like pork. And while the stuffed blossoms can not claim to be 100 percent vegetable, they do tread lightly as far as cost and processing go. Here’s a wrap up of what we’ve come to know about courgette.
Courgette loves
The richness cooking in extra-virgin olive oil or butter lends
A layered aromatic foundation of onion and garlic
Umami-ich ingredients like Pecorino and Parmesan cheese and anchovies
Either high or low heat – for browned pieces or creamy butter
Being used promptly after harvesting (or purchasing)
Lulu’s courgette stuffing
Wash around 60g firm, shiny courgettes. Cut along the length to create long quarters and then halve each length to creath eighths. Gather them together and cut crossways to create small, evenly-sized pieces. Add 60ml (four tablespoons) extra-virgin olive oil into a small pot with one onion, finely chopped, and half a teaspoon of sea salt. Replace the lid and sweat for 15 minutes, remove the lid and cook, stirring occasionally, for a further 15 minutes. Add the courgette and cook for about 20 min or until tender. Peel and finely chop one clove of garlic, add to the pot along with two anchovies and cook gently until the garlic is softened and the anchovy melted. Take off the heat, add 40g (a scant third of a cup) dry sourdough bread crumbs and mix well. Once it has cooled slightly, whisk one large egg and stir through the stuffing so everything is well combined.
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Fill each flower with a teaspoonful of stuffing, folding the petals closed around the stuffing. Arrange the stuffed flowers side by side in a gratin or baking dish. Pour white wine to just cover the bottom, sprinkle the surface of the flowers with a scant layer of bread crumbs, and add a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Bake for 20 min or until golden in patches. Serve warm or at room temperature.
This stuffing is enough for around 20 courgette flowers. See the link below for how to clean and prepare them. Each flower takes about 10g of filling, around one teaspoonful.
To learn more about preparing courgette blossoms, click on the link below.
Lulu’s Provençal Table by Richard Olney (California: Ten Speed Press, 2002)