24 July 2018

Beignets de courgette

You probably know what beignets are — they make them, famously, in New Orleans. Another word for them is fritters. And if you're not American, you probably know what courgettes are. They're zucchinis in the U.S. — green summer squash. We're getting so many of them from our three plants that Walt has started taking the bigger ones right to the compost heap. We are cooking zukes every day now. And by the way, the temperature is supposed to hit 90ºF this afternoon.



Yesterday we made fritters. Notice also that we had corn on the cob — for the third time this summer. These ears came from the Grand Frais market up near Blois, and they were grown in Portugal. In the gratin dish, those are green beans from the garden in a tomato sauce (dried tomatoes and tomato paste from last year's garden) with melted mozzarella cheese on top.



There's not much original about zucchini fritters. However, we made these with chickpea flour (also known as "gram flour") instead of wheat flour, so they are gluten-free. We also put fresh herbs — basil and thyme from the garden and greenhouse — in them. Soon, I want to use corn meal to make fritters. We also have some buckwheat pancake batter that I want to turn into fritters by adding grated zucchini to it.






I think we'll probably be making more zucchini fritters over the next week or two. Today, though, I'm going to make something like this — zucchini in a cream sauce with pasta, but with shrimp rather than chicken. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

20 comments:

  1. As I commented on Walt's blog a few days ago, if you made beignets de fleurs de courge you'll get fewer courgettes to be thrown away!

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    1. Here is an interesting article in French about fleurs de courge and beignets.

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    2. Merci. I've had very good beignets de fleurs de courgettes that were stuffed with goat cheese. Delicious. A man visiting from Boston years ago made them for us using flowers from our squash plants. But they still seem like more of a novelty than a practical thing to cook. All you are eating when you eat them is batter (and, if present, melted cheese).

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  2. Oh, wow, that all looks so good! Now I'm hungry, and I'm going to bed LOL.

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  3. Like you we’re suffering(?) from courgette overload. Last week we made courgette and spinach lasagne which was very good. The recipe’s on bbc goodfood.

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    1. We made the same thing a week or two ago. Part of it is in the freezer for a future lunch.

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  4. Everything on your table looks delicious! I just sent your zucchini chicken recipe to my husband. We’ll make it when we get home from Paris, where it’s been SO hot for the last week and shows no sign of letting up.

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    1. It has been hot, and it's easy to be uncomfortable in Paris when the temperatures are high. Hope you've enjoyed it anyway. Hope you have AC for good sleeping.

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  5. What a lovely spread from the garden. Those fritters look good.

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  6. I've been making zucchini fritters for decades, using a recipe in Sue Style's Alsace cookbook. It uses white flour, but there's so little flour (about 3 tablespoons) that I'm not sure changing the flour would make much of a difference, but I might try. And it includes herbs -- usually chives and parsley.

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    1. Well, we had the chickpea flour and decided to try it. It was very good. Walt makes deep-fried zucchini "balls" with chickpea flour and those are really good, so what did we have to lose? I don't know Sue Style's book. Have to look it up.

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  7. You posted a recipe for your fritters a while back, and I make them regularly now. Thanks so much!

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    1. De rien, Chris. This time I used a recipe from Elise Bauer in Sacramento, who does the Simply Recipes site.

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  8. Just ran into a recipe for bacon zucchini fritters - sounded good!

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    1. Thanks, sillygirl.

      Bob, there are a bunch of such bacon-zuke fritters recipes here. They sound good, and I thought about putting lardons funés in the fritters I made, but I didn't have any in the fridge right then. I'll go get some today, and make fritters again.

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    2. Sorry I didn't get right back to you - yes - there is the recipe I saw. I also think this is a time to enjoy zucchinis that are only a few inches long. I would also make some zucchini relish if I had lots - we love it on cheese sandwiches with toasted bread and lots of lettuce on top. Then I can the relish for using throughout the year - that does use up a lot of zucchini.

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    3. There's one problem with using zucchinis that are only a few inches long, at least if you're growing them yourself. You have to be vigilant, because one day they can be small, and a couple of days later they're enormous.

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    4. Maybe you set a timer and come back in an hour and then pick them!

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