It's zucchini season. I know, it happens nearly every year if you grow summer squash. You're overwhelmed with them. We're eating them just seasoned and cooked on the grill alongside everything we make — sausages, chicken legs and thighs, steaks, or pork chops. Today we're going to have a carpaccio of raw zucchini slices with herbs and feta cheese as our first course at lunch.
A few days ago I made Madame Pépin's simple cheese soufflé and added a grated zucchini to the mixture and used a grated crottin goat cheese instead of swiss cheese. It's based on a recipe published by Jacques Pépin several years ago. His mother was a good home cook who ended up running a restaurant. Pépin says she made this simple soufflé, which doesn't require beating egg whites, because she didn't know about making the fancier kind of soufflé. I have also made this as a simple spinach soufflé in the past. This paragraph includes links to the recipe and variations.
As an appetizer or a dessert, we are enjoying French melons right now. This type of melon is called a charentais. Of course you have to scoop out the seeds before you serve it. The melon charentais is good with some port wine poured over it, or it's good served with ham of the jambon cru or jambon de Bayonne type. You might know that type of ham better as prosciutto.
It's a little farfetched, but the first link reminds me of the Pigalle restaurant in Los Gatos where I loudly complained about being served almost raw green beans!
ReplyDeleteBonjour Cousin,
DeleteI bet you must like them when they turn from green into a greyish brown colour. I cook them like that when they are "big" but I like the French green beans ( slender ones) crunchy and green - boil them for 5-8 mins in water salted with garlic salt and then 2 mins in olive oil and minced echalottes in a frying pan .
Bonjour Cousine,
DeleteThere is crunchy and crunchy. I don't like my green beans overcooked, but I don't like them raw either. Your recipe seems to be the right way to cook those very slender green beans.
I love yout melon I have not eaten before
ReplyDeleteI see you use Madame Pepin's souffle recipe. I've been using it for years; ever since I read Jacques' Pepin's autobiography. I too have adapted it at times by adding other ingredients, but I haven't tried zucchini. Maybe I'll do that next.
ReplyDeleteIntriguing!
ReplyDeleteIs that melon anything, in taste, like its lookalike buddy, the cantaloupe?
I keep looking for those melons in the US, but have never found them. They are so good!
ReplyDelete