Zucchini

I bought this zucchini at the Green Thumb Farmer’s Market in Water Mill last July. When I cut it in half cross wise the above happened.

This liquid is slightly starchy and a little bit slimy. Rub it between your fingers. This stuff is the reason I don’t like raw zucchini, it leaves a weird taste and feeling in your mouth. But I want to keep the freshness and zucchini intact and get rid of that starchyness.

Grilling vegetables is a great way to cook during the summer, but its tricky. The idea of it often surpasses what actually hits the plate. Like most things, food 20 seconds off of a grill has a special quality. It’s a mixture of burned, hot, smoky, salty, etc.  Unless you are running to the table and instructing your guests to immediately eat, this magic is usually lost with the chef. Most of the grilled vegetables I’ve ever had look cool, remind me of that moment right off of the grill, but are kind of soggy and not that great.  What causes this is partly the reason they are so attractive during the summer. They are full of flavor, aromas, and lots of this starchy water. I needed to find a way to keep some of this starchy water, but not all of it. I wanted a grilled zucchini that would keep its smoky charred grill flavor 5, 10, and 30 minutes after it was served. Family style platters that last. 

The skin of the zucchini is what keeps its moisture in. Even the cut side seals itself a little bit when you slice it. To counteract this, I alternately peel the skin and score the cut surface when I’m cutting a zucchini squash or zucchini lengthwise. If you are cutting crosswise then you don’t have to do the scoring.

This allows for the right amount of evaporation, and it cooks the starchy liquid. Depending on the thickness of your cuts you will have to adjust heat, time, and directness of your gas or coals. As you practice more with this you will be surprised how much char you can put on your zucchini without burning them. Even the ones that look burnt can be balanced nicely with lemon juice or vinegar.

I’m always trying to balance flavors on a menu, dish, and ingredient level. If you are only serving zucchini for lunch the zucchini itself will need to be balanced. If you are serving it with something sweet or creamy like ricotta or burrata, you can char it more. I’m always trying to put myself in front of the food at the table, because that is where it is going. It’s not going to stay in front of me in the kitchen looking pretty for pictures, it’s going to have to be moved from a platter onto a plate, and then cut into bite sizes. This sounds obvious but it’s something that gets overlooked a lot.

Zucchini is green stuff, sugar, starch, spongy stuff, and water. My job is to bring out the sugar through charring. While removing most of the water, converting the starchy and trying bring out and preserve the green flavor. Salt and heat bring out the water and the natural flavors.

My favorite way of cooking zucchini and yellow squash solves this problem and amplifies all of the qualities I like. The recipe is in the post in Big Ideas titled “The Overlap”. Its a great technique that applies to a lot of other vegetables. It produced the picture below. A perfect mix of the best zucchini and squash dishes. Charred, slow cooked, crispy, soft, sweet. It’s great.