I know, I know, a few posts back, earlier in zucchini season, I posted a recipe for a sort of fritatta: shredded zucchini, eggs, cheese, baked in a pan, a sort of crustless pie. And it is delicious! wonderful! formidable! (pronounced with a french accent, just because doesn’t it sound lovely that way–and also because I got an A in my GCSE French exams).
So you would think: okay, one shredded zucchini, eggs and cheese dish should be enough for anyone’s repertoire, but no, apparently not……..last night I made this: baked ricotta with both shredded AND sliced zucchini. And while it is a little similar to the fritatta, based on eggs, cheese and zucchini, it is different enough for me to share this with you, too: the fritatta-like pie is a whole different thing to eat: flat, firm, with crisp edges and borders and crispy bits all over. And this? its deep and airy, no crispness at all, a wobble-y mixture of both shredded and sliced zucchini, with the shredded cheese stirred into ricotta. It emerges from the oven souffle-like, but sinks a bit and gets firmer as it does. Its good fresh and warm, but like the first recipe, the zucchini fritatta, even better the next day at cool room temperature.
Delicious Fluff of Zucchini and Ricotta
Serves 4
4-6 zucchini: depending on their size
125g/4 oz whole milk ricotta, broken up with a fork
3 eggs
100g/3 1/2 oz shredded sharp white Cheddar, asiago, pecorino Romano, or a similar cheese
3-4 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh basil
3-4 tablespoons self-rising flour
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
To bake: a deep baking dish, perferably ceramic, about 1 quart/1 litre/ 3-4 cups in volume, prepared by coating the inside with a little evoo, swirling it around, then sprinkling it with freshly grated Parmesan/pecorino/Grana Padano……
Take about 2/3 of the zucchini and grate over the large holes of a grater. Place in a strainer and toss with a few large pinches of kosher or large sea salt; flakes are excellent. Leave for about 15 minutes, lots of liquid will come out, squeeze several times to encourage it!
Slice the remaining zucchini very thinly, toss with a few pinches of salt and leave it also, to draw out the liquid and drain.
Beat the ricotta together with the eggs and stir in the shredded cheese, basil, flour and the drained shredded squeezed zucchini, black pepper to taste.
Pour into the prepared ceramic baking dish, cover with a tight fitting lid or with foil, and bake in a hmmmm…what temperature did i use? I’d say about 325. For about an hour. Having an oven that is temperamental and probably bears no relationship to yours means that you should test it this way: notice: is it puffed up? when you gently touch the top, is it firmish? soft but firmish? if so, its ready. Turn off oven, and keep lid on until you’re ready to eat.
Delicious hot or cold.
Pasta Mista con Zucchini Cacio Pepe!
Serves 2
Cacio pepe is: cheese and black pepper, one of the classic comfort dishes in Italy. Its sauce is creamy, but no cream is involved, the silkiness of the sauce is the result of cooking water–that magic ingredient–being tossed with the hot pasta and cheese.
Pasta mista is a mixture of different types of pasta: here I’ve used spaghetti and tiny macaroni. To be honest I had planned on spaghetti, but found only a small handful in my cupboard, and a small handful of macaroni as well. Like its origins in Italy’s cucina povera, or, the cuisine of the impoverished, which as we all know, can be the most imaginative of all, necessity being the mother and all that….anyhow, I grabbed both types of pasta. Interestingly: while pasta mista began life as a way of using up the small amounts of leftover dried pasta on one’s shelf, it is now sold packaged in chic shops (I just saw a lovely bag in Tuscany), the pasta sizes parcelled up together according to how long they take to cook.
Anyhow, while I was gathering my pasta, grating the cheese and pounding the peppercorns in the mortar and pestle, I gazed out the kitchen window onto the garden and my lone, magnificent, zucchini plant, with a few lovely green zucchini: small, tender and delicious, ready to be picked. The pasta was in the boiling water when I ran through the grass and the mud to gather them……
About 250 g/ 8 oz pasta: half spaghetti, have small macaroni
2-3 small zucchini from the garden, or 1-2 medium sized zucchini from the shops/market, very thinly sliced (though I cut some in batons as well as the slices, to see how that shape would work, note the picture)
Salt for pasta water
About 100 g/ 3 oz freshly grated dryish cheese such as pecorino, parmesan, asiago, grana padano,
Freshly crushed in a mortar and pestle, black peppercorns as desired
About 3 tablespoons evoo
Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salted with about a tablespoon of salt, then add the pasta; stir it through, and when it comes to the boil again, and starts to soften, ie about halfway to al dente, add the sliced zucchini. Cook together until the spaghetti is this side of al dente.
Drain, reserving about a cup of the cooking water.
In the hot pan, over a low heat, toss the pasta and zucchini with the cheese, evoo, and reserved cooking water, black pepper to taste. It will only be a minute or so, then onto hot plates and get your fork ready!
With over 70 cookbook titles (including contributions) to her credit, Marlena conjures up flavours and dishes from the Mediterranean to Mexico, California to France to the Italian islands and single subjects such as chili peppers, olive oil, mushrooms, to a book on classic Jewish food from all over the world.