It's a good thing I adore growing and eating courgettes. They are growing as fast as triffids but luckily dont have the ability to kill.
I'm picking, cooking them as fast as I can, in pasta dishes, stir fries, in gratins with cream and gran padano or with tomatoes in olive oil.
They still keep a coming so I was on the hunt for new recipes too. Flicking through my cookbooks for inspiration, I went back to an old favourite from "Amaretto, Apple Cak e and Artichokes. The best of Anna del Conte"
I've cooked from this book for years, but this time, a recipe that I had missed, leapt from the page which filled me with both longing and happy memories.
Courgettes stuffed with ricotta and amaretti, known in Italian as Zuccine ripene alla Mantovana.
At once, I was back in the Piazza della Erbe in Mantua with my husband and two friends, Spence and Linda. Fourteen years ago, sitting at a restaurant near the round 11th century church for lunch on a summer's day. A bottle of prosecco was involved as we ate greedily. Parma ham and melon to start followed by bowlfuls of tortelli di zucca. and I couldn't get enough of the delicious pumpkin filling with amaretti and nutmeg.
So, seeing those ingredients mixed with creamy ricotta in Anna's recipe, I set to work with a will in the kitchen.
According to Anna del Conte, her courgette recipe is "characteristic of the cooking of Mantua, There are many recipes for stuffed courgettes but to my mind, this is the most delicious."
She's right of course, so much so, I've made this recipe twice within ten days.
Courgettes stuffed with ricotta and amaretti
Ingredients
4 medium-sized courgettes
sea salt 30g unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot
2 amaretti, finely crumbled
150gm ricotta
2 tspns chopped fresh thyme or I tspn dried thyme
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 free-range egg
Freshly ground black pepper
dried breadcrumbs
Method
Wash courgettes, drop them in boiling salted water and cook for 2 - 3 minutes after the water has come back to the boil. Cut off both ends and cut in half lengthwise.
Scoop out the unside of the courgettes and reserve the pulp. Leave a half inch layer around the shells and sprinkle the insides with salt. leave upside down on a wooden boardto dran off the excess water.
Meawhileile, prepare the stuffing. Add half the butter and 1 tsp of oil in a pan. Add the shallot, and a little salt and saute over low heat until soft, but not brown.
Finely chop the courgette pulp and add to the shallot. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring and mashing the mixture with a wooden spoon.
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 degrees F) gas mark 5.
Combine the amaretti, ricotta, thyme, nutmeg and egg in a bowl. Add the courgette pulp mixture with all its cooking juices and work everything together. Add salt and pepper if necessary.
Pat dry the courgette shells inside out with kitchen paper.
Fill the shells with the stuffing sprinkle with some dried breadcrumbs and dot with the remaining butter. Smear the bottom of a rectangular dish with the remaining oil, and lay the courgette shells in the bottom of the dish, hollow side up. Dot with the remaining butter .
Bake in the oven for 35 minutes until the courgette shells are tender and a light golden crust has formed. Serve warm or at room temperature. The whole dish can be prepared and baked in advance in advance and reheated for 5 minutes.
Of course, one fabulous recipe does not a cookbook make. Luckily Anna's book is full of recipes that work, all so carefully explained, and they are recipes that I can rely on.
Each chapter is dedicated to a group of ingredients, eg nuts, tomatoes, vegetables, not necessarily in alphabetical order, but useful when you need to use a particular ingredient. Do use the index too, because I didn't find the recipe above with the other courgette recipes...this was hidden amongst the ricotta recipes in the cheeses chapter!
I couldn't make a really good risotto until I bought this book all those years ago, and I adore the really rustic dishes which are so delicious, such as the stewed vegetables (eg peppers, aubergines, potatoes, courgettes and onions) which are served in a hollowed out round loaf.
Authenticity is key in this cookbook and I also particularly liked the welcome glimpses of Anna's life growing up in Italy.
Tasting the flavours in the courgette and ricotta dish last night took me back to that stopover lunch in Mantua, on the way to Lake Garda. Now, I can't wait to go back there to see and taste my way around Lombardy....
"Amaretto, Apple cake and Artichokes. .The best of Anna del Conte" was published in paperback by Vintage Press in 2006.
