They are delicious, healthy, and can make the perfect ingredient for many dishes. So why not using them now that they are in season? Discover with us 3 yummy recipes with zucchini easy to replicate at home.

Stuffed Zucchini – the Liguria way

An old traditional regional dish on your table, you can vary this recipe as you like, as the peasants of Liguria made it with what they had available at home (which wasn’t much, in fact often the tuna was replaced with fresh cheese).

 

Ingredients:

8 zucchini (average size)

150 gr tuna

2 eggs

4 filets of anchovies

2 spoons of capers

2 onions

Milk as needed

1 stale bread

50 gr grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Oil as needed

Salt

Pepper

Wash the zucchini and boil them in salty water for 10 minutes without cutting them. Dice the stale bread and make it tender by pouring some milk on it until it softens. Clean and mince the onions and sauté them in oil together with minced anchovies. Drain the zucchini and let them cool. Cut their extremities and cut each one in half vertically (on the longer side), then scoop the filling out of them. Add the filling to the onions and anchovies and keep cooking, and in the meantime mix the bread, the tuna, the capers (washed) in a bowl. Turn on the oven at 180° C degrees. Mix the composite (bread, the tuna and the capers) with the onions and the anchovies you took out of the stove and also add the Parmigiano Reggiano. Add salt and pepper. Fill the empty zucchini with the mix you prepared and after placing it in a baking pan, add some olive oil and bake it. When ready, let it cool for 5 minutes before serving. Serves 4.

Smoked Zucchini’s flan

 

Ingredients:

4 zucchini

100 gr scamorza (or any other smoked cheese available)

3 slices thickly cut of pancetta (bacon)

breadcrumbs as needed

Oil

Salt

Pepper

Slice the zucchini quite thinly (6 mm). Dice the scamorza and the pancetta and mix them together in a bowl. Cover the interior of a baking pan with breadcrumbs, oil, salt, pepper and place a layer of zucchini on it and then half of the composite of bacon and scamorza. Place another layer as the above, covering the top with zucchini. Dust with breadcrumbs , salt, and place in the oven at 200° for half an hour, then only grill for 20 minutes. Serves 4.

Zucchini’s lasagna

 

Ingredients:

250 gr of lasagna

250 gr zucchini

250 gr grounded beef

olive oil

less than half an onion

1 carrot

1 celery

1 garlic clove

half glass white wine

700 ml béchamel

400 ml tomato sauce 

basil

breadcrumbs

pepper

Dice the zucchini, fry them in oil. Salt the zucchini and add basil. In a pan warm some olive oil and sautè the carrot, the onion and the celery diced, then add the meat and the tomato sauce. Let it cook at medium heat for 10 minutes and add some white wine. Take off the heat and stir together with the zucchini. Cook the lasagna pasta in salt water. Brush a baking pan with some béchamel and oil. Place a layer of pasta and add béchamel. Add some of the stuffing and some other béchamel and cover with another layer of pasta. Keep going until the ingredients are over, then cover with béchamel and dust with breadcrumbs. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180° C degrees until it browns. Let the lasagna cool for 5 minutes before serving. Serves 5.

You can pair all the three recipes with two delicious ligurian white wines, Pigato, or Vermentino Cinque Terre.

Written by: Elisa della Barba