Field of Science

Botancial recipe - Zucchini pickles

Here in the great midwest, August always means the same thing to gardeners, way too many zucchini. Neighbors, even vegetarians, even starving graduate students, will run and hide if they see you coming with a basket, and they should if you let them grow to more and 7-8" in length. The trouble is that when you're away for a few hours, and the squash go untended, zucchini can grow to the size of torpedoes. After making the obligatory zucchini bread, 6 loaves, out of just one torpedo, best to just admit the error and toss the rest. Even when picked at an optimal size, zucchini have a way of overwhelming you, so for decades now, any zucchini recipe that made something new was given a try, and most have been, well, less than exciting. And that's how it is with recipes, and cookbooks, and the Phactors know because when it comes to exotic cookbooks, containing all those culinary promises of gastronomic delight, we have no will power, and most of those recipes go untried, but every now and then you get a truly remarkable cookbook that yields 4 or 5 really outstanding recipes that get added to your cooking lexicon. My point being that many get tried, and few measure up, and when offering up a recipe to my readers, whose response to my initial recipe offering was rather disappointing, a result that can perhaps be attributed to people being creatures of habit and not willing to readily change their dietary staples, it has gone through a filter and passed the test; something that's really good, really easy, and in this case uses up those excess zucchini. These zucchini pickles don't take long to make, and piled on top of a grilled sausage or hotdog, they are simply outstanding. One small change: add 1 tsp of pickling spices to the vinegar mix for a bit more of a complex flavor. In a recent batch of these pickles, two long, thin green hot peppers were thinly sliced and added to the zucchini and onions for bit of zip; after all when you get that old food processor whirling away, it's hard to stop! Sorry to Mrs. Phactor who had other plans for those peppers, the old two cooks in one kitchen problem. This recipe can also be doubled without any problem. And it also works for cucumbers.

8 comments:

Pat said...

I was getting ready to post "Yeah looks good but you should add turmeric." But they did.

Since the courgette (the English English name for zucchini) took off in popularity in the 1970s in the UK fewer people eat marrows. The marrow is like a courgette but 1-2 ft long and up to 6 in diameter. Usually stuffed and roasted, it takes a good cook to make it interesting.

The first link is what they should look like, the second is a monstrous abomination for a show.

http://nipitinthebud.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/monster-marrows/

http://www.knitnut.net/2009/07/zoom-and-the-really-big-zucchini/

Pat said...

"6 in" meaning 6 inches, not "6 of the previous measurement in"

Pat said...

Even more monstrous

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1052744/Its-ill-wind--soggy-summer-produces-Britains-world-record-marrow.html

The Phytophactor said...

Let's see if this can be made easier.
what marrows should look like
monstrous abomination of a marrow
even more monstrous marrows

The Phytophactor said...

Having viewed the links, let me point out that the 2nd link shows an image of "giant Irish zucchini plant", but you don't fool a neotropical botanists that easy. The leaves belong to Gunnera. And last year at the pumpkin patch in Arthur IL a 901 lb pumpkin was on display. Those cucurbits can really make a big fruit. Now are those the biggest fruits of all? Have to explore this a bit. Any ideas?

Pat said...

I was wondering if you were going to spot that Gunnera. :) Almost as good a joke as the Notocactus woollii at Chelsea Physic Garden. Which is, if you look closely, knitted.

1725 lbs (782 kg) appears to be the current record for pumpkins. I certainly can't think of any bigger fruit in nature.

What neat links you do, I should join the 20th Century and work out how to do that.

The Phytophactor said...

Glad you reminded me of the Notocactus at Chelsea; a good joke.

Here's the html code:
text of the link

The Phytophactor said...

Oops! That was funny. OK I'll try again.
Enclose this phrase,A href="link address" in <>, , then type the text that will appear as the link, and close the code phrase with /A again in <>.
Hope that makes sense.