[ICSA 73] What do you call a courgette farmer? A Zucch Keeper.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > [ICSA 73] What do you call a courgette farmer? A Zucch Keeper.

Eeyo: Aug 29, 2004

Menu for dinner:

Zucchini, corn, and black bean soup
Zucchini and carrot gyoza
Shaved zucchini and ginger ice with matcha syrup

Day before, prep the dessert so that it can be frozen through.

One medium zucchini, six ginger medallions, a few spoons of honey. Cut off the blossom end of the zucchini. Cut the zucchini lengthwise into 3 segments, stopping before the stem so it stays together. Layer ginger medallions inside the zucchini, drizzle with honey, then wrap everything in plastic and freeze.

For the syrup, I used 125g water, 125g sugar, 10g matcha. Boil the water and sugar, whisk in the matcha and let cool. This makes way too much so scale to whatever you'd like.

Day before, prep the dumplings and freeze them so you can eat dumplings for a while. Zucchini dumplings:
230g zucchini (1 medium), 115g carrot (1 large), 5 tbsp textured vegetable protein, a tablespoon or two of oil, 3 cloves garlic, 1 knob ginger, 3 large green onion (you can't have enough really). Soy sauce, msg, and black vinegar to taste. Makes 44 dumplings.

Finely grate zucchini and carrot. Mix with TVP and let it absorb a bit of the zucchini juice. Theory: TVP uses about 1:1 by volume of liquid. About 25% of the zucchini and 10% of the carrot will be let off in juice, so we'll need about 5 tbsp TVP.

Fry it up so the zucchini lets off more juice and the filling is partially cooked.

Grate ginger/garlic into a paste. Mix into fried zucchini+carrot. Add chopped green onion. Add soy sauce, msg, and black vinegar to taste.

Prep your dumpling workstation. You need to keep the wrappers hydrated so they don't dry out and crack. Place a damp kitchen towel over the dumpling wrappers, and drape a damp kitchen towel over a sheet pan covered in plastic wrap to prevent sticking.

(No action shots of dumpling making, I only have 2 hands)
Wet your fingers from a bowl of water, then paint the outside edge of a dumpling wrapper with water. Fill with a small amount of filling, about a teaspoon. The top 2/3 will be pleated and the bottom 1/3 will be the inside curve of the dumpling. Pinch the edge, then with the other hand begin pleating the dumplings, until you've reached the other side. Firmly press the wrapper to seal the dumpling, then place bottom down onto the sheet pan. Cover with the damp towel. Do this until you run out of dumplings or wrappers. I somehow made exactly the right amount of filling which I am very pleased by.

Now for the soup. I apparently did not take many soup pictures. Zucchini soup:
1 Tablespoon oil, a teaspoon of whole achiote, 3 Shallots, 1 large carrot, 3 cloves garlic, spice blend of your choice, 5 cups stock, 1 can of black beans (or make your own, I called an audible so it's just canned tonight), 2 ears of corn, 2 medium zucchini, 2 tbsp tomato paste, 1/2 a bunch of cilantro, noodles to taste.

Spice blend: I used 4 morita chilis, 1 tbsp toasted cumin, 2 tbsp toasted coriander, and 2 cloves. Grind it all up.

Fry up the achiote seeds in the oil for a bit to get their color, then discard the seeds. Soaking may be better, not sure how much color I got. Fry shallots in oil, then add chopped carrot and fry some more. Add some of your spice mix and fry a bit more, then add garlic and stock (I used better than bouillon because I decided on soup at the last minute). Simmer the carrots for a while so they get tender.

I wanted to roast the corn and zucchini a bit so I'd get some charring. Put the corn in a foil packet. Slice the zucchini lengthwise, but not going all the way so it remains one piece. Rub with your spice mix and a bit of oil, then skewer. Place zucchini over corn and broil, until zucchini is tender but still crisp. Unfortunately I didn't really get any kind of char going, I should have cut everything up into bits to maximize surface area.

Cut up zucchini into chunks, then add zucchini and corn to soup. Add more spice to taste, then add tomato paste and black beans. Shortly before serving add the chopped cilantro. Ladle over noodles in the bowl.

To prep dumplings: pan fry in a bit of oil until the bottoms are crispy brown. Add in 2-3 tbsp water, then cover with a lid. Let dumplings steam until the water has evaporated, then serve.

The finished dinner:

For dessert, take out your frozen zucchini. I also froze the bowl I'm grating into and the microplane to ensure everything stays frozen. Microplane the zucchini.

Garnish with a bit of syrup, and you're done!

Tasting notes:

Soup turned out good. Zucchini was still tender but not limp, fresh corn was delightful, and I liked the smokiness from the moritas. I added some hot sauce since my wife doesn't do spicy foods.

Dumplings were good. I should have seasoned the filling more, it tasted much less seasoned after freezing and cooking. The dumplings were delightfully juicy. The TVP did its job and absorbed the veggie liquid, the zucchini gave a nice juicy filling, and the carrot added some sweetness. In the future I'd probably do less carrot and swap in cabbage or something else.

Shaved Ice was good. The honey played well with the ginger flavor, and you could taste a bit of the vegetal base of the zucchini. It looked pretty too, a slight green tinge with flecks of dark green skin. The matcha played well with the vegetal flavor, and added a good astringency. Since it's shaved you get a nice pop of the flavors without a huge amount of sugar.