Zucchini with Garlic, Herbs and Onion

Onion and zucchini

1. It is best to make the cold appetizer with young zucchini, with pale skin and no obvious seeds. It is better not to peel them, so that small, slightly firm bits of skin stand out in the dish. You can double or even triple the amount of herbs if you like, and the dish will only get tastier.

   

2. Pickle the onion. Peel the onion and chop it finely with a knife. Put the chopped onion in a small bowl and pour over 1-2 tbsp of wine vinegar. Stir and leave to marinate for at least 15 mins. After that, squeeze the onion out of the liquid easily.

   

3. Slice the zucchini. Wash the young zucchini and dry them with a towel. Trim the ends and cut crosswise into 2.5-3 cm thick “rounds”. Don’t cut them thinner, or the fried zucchini will go limp and the dish will turn out like zucchini caviar. After frying, the flesh inside should still be slightly raw, al dente, so to speak.

   

4. Fry the zucchini. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and let it warm up for 2-3 mins. Fry the sliced zucchini on both sides until golden. Don’t let them overcook, or the dish will have a pronounced aftertaste. The goal is a fried surface and a barely raw center, not completely overfried zucchini. Put the fried zucchini in a single layer on a large plate and cool to room temperature.

   

Appetizer and croutons

1. Chop the herbs with the garlic and hot pepper. Pull all the leaves off the herb sprigs. It is better not to use the tough stems. Put the herb leaves in a chopper, add the peeled garlic cloves and the hot pepper with the seeds and white membranes removed. Add a pinch of salt and 0.5 tsp of sugar (2 g). Chop everything. There is no need to try too hard; the herbs and garlic should stay in fairly coarse pieces.

   

2. Chop the cooled zucchini. There is no need to puree the vegetables, as for zucchini soup. You can chop them with a knife, which is a little tedious, but the zucchini pieces will be the size of the chopped onion. It is much more convenient to put the zucchini in a blender and chop in pulse mode, switching the blender on several times for 1-2 secs. Drain off the liquid that has collected from the chopped zucchini.

   

3. Mix the zucchini with the dressing and onion. In a suitable bowl, combine the chopped vegetables and the prepared dressing of herbs, pepper and garlic. Add the squeezed pickled onion and stir. If you can see any liquid, it is better to drain it. Season the appetizer with salt and black pepper to taste. The dish should be quite spicy.

   

4. Chill the appetizer. Put the bowl of vegetable mixture in the refrigerator to chill completely, for at least 1 hour. The dish is tastiest when it is very cold. It is worth preparing the appetizer ahead and serving it thoroughly chilled.

   

5. While the appetizer chills, prepare the croutons. Cut the wheat bread or baguette into slices 1 cm thick and toast them in a dry frying pan or grill pan over medium heat. When the croutons dry out and begin to brown, lay them on a plate and let them cool to room temperature. Rub each crouton with garlic on both sides.

Serving

1. Put the appetizer on a plate. Pile the chilled zucchini with garlic onto a large plate, as a mound, a ball or any other way, leaving room for the croutons and vegetables. Arrange the garlic croutons. By the way, if the bread slices are large, you can cut them in half. Garnish the appetizer with cherry tomatoes, olives and sprigs of herbs. Besides decorating the appetizer, the small tomatoes complement the flavor of the dish very nicely.

   

   Serve the garlic appetizer at the start of lunch or, as turned out to be a good option, as a snack with beer. If you like, add more heat or season with freshly ground pepper, which will complement the flavor and improve the aroma.

   

   If you like, add a baked bell pepper, peeled and seeded, to the dish. Instead of croutons, you can use toasted bread with hot pepper. This appetizer also works very well as a cold side dish or as part of an assorted appetizer platter.