Stuffed Courgettes
Crossposted to 
cookbook_challenge.
I picked this out of the "Vegetables" section of my mother's cookbook, partly because I was charmed by the description. It's another newspaper cutting that starts:
"Courgettes are the midget marrows you see in most greengrocers at this time of the year. At 10p per lb. you get quite a lot for your money."
Charmed both by the price and by the need to introduce the courgette as a kind of marrow, rather than vice versa. My father grew marrows in the garden and there's a stuffed marrow recipe in here I'd quite like to try* but marrows are a lot harder to find these days than courgettes.
Ingredients
Courgettes
1 1/2 oz butter plus a little more
A small onion, finely chopped
1/2 lb mushrooms, finely chopped
2 dessert spoons white wine
2 dessert spoons brown sauce
a few breadcrumbs
Method
Trim the stalk end of the courgettes, cut in half lengthways and scoop out the centre with a teaspoon.
Put in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then drain well and set aside.
Cook the chopped onion in the butter. Add the chopped mushroom and cook for about 2 minutes.
Add the white wine and brown sauce and cook until it thickens, then bind with a few breadcrumbs.
Arrange the courgettes in a buttered fireproof dish and pipe the mushroom stuffing in the cavities. Sprinkle with more breadcrumbs, dot with more butter and gratinate in a hot oven.
Mistakes, Changes and Substitutions
This felt a little like a Bake Off technical challenge. How many courgettes? how hot an oven? how long in the oven to "gratinate" (not a word I had come across before though its meaning is clear). Anyway we used four courgettes which seemed about the right amount for the amount of stuffing we had, and we baked them at 180C for 20 minutes in the oven which seemed to work.
I did not pipe the stuffing because I don't have a piping bag or nozzle though, frankly, if I'd been going to pipe it, I would have whizzed the lot in the food mixer before the attempt
Verdict
An odd one this. We liked the stuffed courgette idea and we liked the stuffing itself (I have a Delia pasta recipe that makes a mushroom sauce in a similar way) but weren't entirely convinced by them together - it was fine just not more than the sum of its parts, if you see what I mean. Our Rose Elliot book has several stuffed courgette recipes in it, so we may try some of them.
*I feel very nostalgic about it despite the fact I was a fussy eater as a child and hated it. This entry was originally posted at https://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/813502.html.
cookbook_challenge.
I picked this out of the "Vegetables" section of my mother's cookbook, partly because I was charmed by the description. It's another newspaper cutting that starts:
"Courgettes are the midget marrows you see in most greengrocers at this time of the year. At 10p per lb. you get quite a lot for your money."
Charmed both by the price and by the need to introduce the courgette as a kind of marrow, rather than vice versa. My father grew marrows in the garden and there's a stuffed marrow recipe in here I'd quite like to try* but marrows are a lot harder to find these days than courgettes.
Ingredients
Courgettes
1 1/2 oz butter plus a little more
A small onion, finely chopped
1/2 lb mushrooms, finely chopped
2 dessert spoons white wine
2 dessert spoons brown sauce
a few breadcrumbs
Method
Trim the stalk end of the courgettes, cut in half lengthways and scoop out the centre with a teaspoon.
Put in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then drain well and set aside.
Cook the chopped onion in the butter. Add the chopped mushroom and cook for about 2 minutes.
Add the white wine and brown sauce and cook until it thickens, then bind with a few breadcrumbs.
Arrange the courgettes in a buttered fireproof dish and pipe the mushroom stuffing in the cavities. Sprinkle with more breadcrumbs, dot with more butter and gratinate in a hot oven.
Mistakes, Changes and Substitutions
This felt a little like a Bake Off technical challenge. How many courgettes? how hot an oven? how long in the oven to "gratinate" (not a word I had come across before though its meaning is clear). Anyway we used four courgettes which seemed about the right amount for the amount of stuffing we had, and we baked them at 180C for 20 minutes in the oven which seemed to work.
I did not pipe the stuffing because I don't have a piping bag or nozzle though, frankly, if I'd been going to pipe it, I would have whizzed the lot in the food mixer before the attempt
Verdict
An odd one this. We liked the stuffed courgette idea and we liked the stuffing itself (I have a Delia pasta recipe that makes a mushroom sauce in a similar way) but weren't entirely convinced by them together - it was fine just not more than the sum of its parts, if you see what I mean. Our Rose Elliot book has several stuffed courgette recipes in it, so we may try some of them.
*I feel very nostalgic about it despite the fact I was a fussy eater as a child and hated it. This entry was originally posted at https://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/813502.html.