Z: (Stuffed) Zucchini

Here we are, folks!  After about three and a half years on the Alphabake train, we have finally arrived at letter "Z". What a culinary journey it has been!

For the final pick I decided to go with this stuffed zucchini recipe from Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi.  I have not whipped up too many savoury recipes on the blog so this made for a nice change. It was also such a breeze to prepare compared to the yogurt bread I made for the previous food entry.

These stuffed zucchinis would make a lovely little starter or an accompaniment with a main. There were some great flavours in this dish; the kitchen smelled amazing.  The recipe said that the rice should be "al dente" and that was the result I got.  My two taste testers and I were not entirely pleased with the slightly crunchy texture of the rice filling.  The rice is supposed to get "cooked" while it is inside the zucchini and steaming the zucchini any longer than what the recipe calls for would make it mushy and not very nice to serve up.  If you would like to try this recipe and want to have a softer rice filling, I would cook it a bit, but not fully, before scooping it into the zucchini "boats".

I made this recipe and took the photos while I was staying in San Francisco in early March of this year.  At the time I was working with local commercial photographer, Philip Harvey.  Due to this, I had the exciting opportunity to shoot the final results from this recipe in his professional photography studio.  I have to send a big shout out to Phil's intern at the time, Victor Tseng, for helping me out with the equipment and a lot of the setup for this shoot.  I learned a lot in that session and I am really happy with the photos we got from it.


Ingredients:

1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
⅔ cup short-grain rice
2 Tbsp currants
1 Tbsp pine nuts
2 Tbsp chopped parsley, plus extra to garnish
½ tsp dried mint
½ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
3 Tbsp lemon juice
3 medium zucchini
¾ cup boiling water
1 ½ Tbsp sugar
salt and black pepper






1) Saute the onion in the oil until softened.  Add the rice, currants, pine nuts, parsley, mint, spices and half the lemon juice.  Continue cooking on low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2) Halve the zucchini lengthways along the centre and use a spoon to scoop out some of the flesh to make "boats".  Place them in a shallow saucepan that is large enough to accommodate them side by side.  Fill them with the rice stuffing.  Pour the boiling water, remaining lemon juice, sugar and some salt around the zucchini.  The liquid should not come as high as the filling.

3) Simmer, covered, for 30 to 40 minutes, basting the filling occasionally with the cooking juices.  The zucchini are ready when the rice is al dente and almost all the juices have evaporated.  Allow to cool down completely before refrigerating. Garnish with chopped parsley when serving.

Serves 6