Tag: courgettes

Griddled courgettes with chilli lime dressing

Serves: 6
Prep time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 5 mins
Total time: 20 mins
Skill level: Easy peasy
Costs: Cheap as chips

Courgettes always look so attractive when cooked on a griddle pan and this recipe turns this simple vegetable into something quite special. Drizzle chilli lime dressing over the griddled courgettes to give a light and delicious Summer lunch. It can be served warm but is also perfect served cold for a buffet or party with other salad dishes. Serve it with crusty bread so you can mop up the dressing. The delicious dressing adds a great depth of flavour to the dish making it perfect for a light option and healthy too.

Herbed rack of lamb with courgette gratin

I don’t mind hospitals. I always suspect people who say melodramatically “Oh I HATE hospitals!”are angling to tell you a story about how they broke their leg when they were nine and had to go to hospital and it was just really, laike, super-traumatising.

People who have had a really terrible time in hospital, watched family members die, contracted MRSA, been operated on while still awake etc., tend not to want to re-live the experience by telling you about it.

I’m not saying I love hospitals: I don’t want to, like, go on holiday to a hospital, but I don’t mind them. So when on Friday morning the GP told me that I had to take Sam to the Royal Free as quickly as I could because his temperature was through the roof, his heart was dancing a disco beat and he was breathing faster than Mo Farah on the home straight, I wasn’t too fussed. Fine, I thought. Hospital. Lovely paediatricians to make Sam better feel nice no more crying.

And I still didn’t mind throughout that whole day while I sat in the kiddie A&E with poor pathetic, hot Sam as the (really nice) nurses and (really charming) doctor made him repeatedly scream his head off by sticking things in his ears and down his throat and up his nose and taking blood samples and chest X-Rays.

But then after seven or so hours – I didn’t even feel them go by, I am very good at waiting – we were sent up to the children’s ward and given a room. We couldn’t go home, they said, until they had seen Sam smile (ha!) and his temperature had come down to normal.

I looked around the room and out of the window as dusk started to fall over Hampstead. Away from the roar and chaos of A&E, which I had grown to think of as home, it was so quiet. So lonely. I looked at Pond Street, the steep hill I drive up and down at least once a week. I looked around the clean but shabby room, at the green and blue metal-barred cot, at the parent bed, which had a mattress that was like a load of bricks padded with some old carpet, a few slices of wonder loaf scattered about on top then covered with a sheet.

Then I thought about Sam’s nursery at home, where I have been spending the last few sleepless, fretful nights with its soft cosy beds, clean bathroom and tasteful wallpaper, everything smelling sweetly of Persil. I thought about the prospect of being denied having dinner, in my own kitchen, with my husband. Worst of all, my iPhone battery was running out and I hadn’t brought a charger. And I thought: “Even if I have to grab Sam and make a run for it disguised as an old washerwoman I need to get out of this fucking place.”

The absolutely delightful nurse, who had immediately given me a cup of tea, a sandwich and a muffin as I arrived, (they don’t do that at the Portland, I tell you), and the consultant came round and said “It’s a really bad virus. So, no antibiotics unless the throat swab comes back positive on Monday. Now it’s just about waiting for the virus to work its way out, managing his fever in the meantime, which we can do here, or…” they didn’t need to finish the sentence. I had shoved my paltry belongings back in my horrible TopShop holdall, stuffed Sam on top, said my fond farewells and was in the parking lot waiting for my husband within about six minutes.

My husband had repeatedly offered to go out and get a curry for dinner but I just didn’t feel like having a big stinking pile of food. I needed to wash the Free (God bless it, the people who go to work there are truly sent from Heaven to do His work) out of my hair and eat something pure and holy, like sushi.

But I didn’t have any sushi, so we ended up eating a bizarre dinner consisted of an entire Epoisse and two rounds of black pudding with fried apple slices.

Which was delicious, but I’d much rather have had (if not sushi) a thing we had the previous evening, which was the titular herbed rack of lamb with courgette gratin.

A butcher has opened at the top of our road, a really proper one and it has changed my life. My husband is hugely squeamish about where meat and fish come from and so we only eat a very narrow range of things from Waitrose: chicken, certain sorts of salmon, bacon, extremely expensive free-range beef. Even then he complains about it not coming from a proper butcher. There is a butcher on the high street but it’s out of my way and he once sold me some bad chicken and I am still annoyed about it.

So now one a good butcher has opened – Meat NW5 is its catchy name – we have been able to have pretty much anything for dinner. I’ve gone slightly nuts, I go every morning after dropping Kitty off at nursery and I think they’re a bit scared that I might be in love with one of them.

But the thing is I can go in and buy 2 chipolatas for Kitty’s tea, 120g of best stewing beef for Sam’s puree and then some lamb sweetbreads and a small rack of lamb for dinner with my fusspot husband.

No more spare sausages or chicken thighs hanging about in the fridge. Just go, get only what you want, cook it that night. Then buy 400 packs of bog roll and deodorant and Cheerios on Ocado every now and again. Ha ha ha! It’s like being handed loads of time and money.

A rack of lamb is a bit 2002 and I don’t actually think I’ve had it since then but it is a lovely thing and I did it like this with a courgette gratin, which was AMAZING.

For the rack of lamb

1 rack of lamb
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 large handful fresh breadcrums
assorted soft herbs – thyme, mint, oregano, rosemary – whatever you like, a small handful
some lemon zest?
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven as hot as it will go

1 brown the lamb all over for about 4 minutes in some oil and set aside to cool for a few minutes

2 Whiz up your breadcrumbs with the herbs and lemon zest, a large pinch of salt and a few turns of the pepper grinder

3 spread the lamb with the mustard and then pack on the breadcrumb mixture

4 All the recipes said put the lamb in the oven at 220C for 12 minutes and so I did that and it came out actually fucking cold in the middle. I mean, I know it’s fine to eat rare lamb but come the fuck on. Giles and I ended up agreeing that for a rack of 4 chops or more you should put it in at 220C for 25 minutes.

For the courgette gratin

3 courgettes
200 ml double cream
salt and pepper
1 handful of breadcrumbs
1 large handful of parmesan cheese

1 Slice your courgettes to the thickness of a £1 coin (have a look at a coin because it’s thinner than you think it is), put them on a baking tray and cover them in olive oil and salt and pepper. Stick them in at the top of the oven at 180C for about 10 minutes.

2 Get yourself a dish that will take all the courgettes. Shake them in, add more salt and pepper – you could also crush in a bit of garlic or other herbs if you like – toss them about, then pour over some double cream. I used I think about 200 ml but basically you just want the courgettes to be lying in a medium-bath of cream. Not a small pool and not absolutely drowning.

3 Pack on top of the courgettes your breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese. Back for 25 min at 180C

And, look, here is Sam this afternoon. Right as rain – sort of. Still not really smiling, but no need to worry.

Roast vegetable pizza with balsamic glaze

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Ingredients

To make the pizza dough:

7g dried active yeast
225g plain white flour
75g spelt flour
5g sea salt flakes, crushed
2tbsp olive oil

For the pizza topping:

1x courgette
1 x red onion
150g cherry toms
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
I rosemary stalk, leaves only roughly chopped
1tbsp olive oil
1 jar pizza sauce
1 mozzarella ball, about 125g, sliced
200ml balsamic vinegar
1tsp clear honey

That’s goodtoknow

Make extra of the balsamic glaze by multiplying the vinegar quantity by four and using 1tbsp of honey. Keep it in the fridge for future pizza usage or even as a salad dressing or as a dip. In fact, it’s almost scrummy enough to eat on it’s own with a spoon.

Method

Stir the yeast into 200ml of lukewarm water, cover and then leave in a warm place for 15 minutes. Once it’s done, there should be froth on top to show the yeast is ‘alive.’
Stir all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, make a well in the centre and then add the oil and gradually add in the yeast mixture, holding the bowl with one hand and bringing the mixture together until you have a rough, fairly sticky dough. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and then knead until smooth. This should take about 8-10 minutes. If you find the dough is still a bit sticky, lightly grease your hands and the sides with a few drops of olive oil and knead until smooth. Return your dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for 45 mins to rest and allow your dough to get more stretchy.
Once done, punch down your dough and then separate into two. Lightly knead and then shape into two balls. Pop both of them into a well-oiled roasting tin, turning them over to cover in the oil so they don’t stick to each other. Cover with cling film, stick in a warm place and leave to rise for one hour or until doubled in size.
Towards the last half of your bread rising, prepare your veg. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C/Electric Fan 180C/Gas Mark 6. Cut the courgettes into 1.5cm discs, the red onion into 8 wedges and toss with the tomatoes, crushed garlic and chopped rosemary in a roasting tin with the olive oil. Put in the oven for 20 minutes, giving it a shake half way through. Once done, set-aside until ready to use. Turn the heat up to 475F/245C/Electric Fan 220C/Gas Mark 9 and put a baking sheet in the hottest part of the oven.
Meanwhile, make your balsamic glaze by stirring together 200ml of balsamic vinegar and 1Tsp of clear runny honey in a small saucepan. Put on a high heat, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer until it reduces by roughly a third. The vinegar should be thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Turn off the heat and set aside to cool.
Once your pizza bases have finished rising, take one out, shape it into a disk and pop it back into the fridge well sealed for when you make your next pizza. Take the other piece of dough and shape into a disk too, lightly flour your worktop and then use a rolling pin to roll it out thinly – it will rise when in the oven. Use your hands to stretch a little more and create a rough circle shape, being careful not to tear the dough. Take out your baking sheet, dust it lightly with flour and pop the pizza base on. Spread some of the pizza sauce on top, add the sliced mozzarella, vegetables and pop it back into the oven for 15-20 mins or until the base is crisp and golden brown.
Once the pizza is cooked, take it out and before slicing to serve, drizzle over as much as you want of the balsamic glaze and season, if you wish, with some cracked black pepper and a bit of salt. Alternatively, you could cut the pizza into slices and use the glaze as a dipping sauce instead.

By Nadine Brown

What do you think of this recipe? Leave us your comments, twists and handy tips.

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