Sunday, August 05, 2018

Boulettes de courgettes

Deep-fried zucchini balls are a perennial favorite of ours. They're a good way to use some of the zucchini that keeps on coming from the garden. For this batch, I grated one of the larger zucchinis. The seeds weren't well formed yet, so I left them in. But if the seeds are large, they can be tough, so it's good to remove them before grating the squash. I used the fine blade in the food processor to grate the zucchini.

The balls are shaped and resting before frying.

I salted the grated squash and let it drain before squeezing out the excess water. Then I added some finely minced flavor ingredients: shallot, jalapeño pepper, ginger, and cilantro. I mixed all that in and added chick pea flour to hold it all together. I think wheat flour or even finely ground corn meal would work just as well. I formed the balls and let them rest so the flour could absorb the moisture in the mix.

Zucchini balls and chicken wings served with a côtes du Rhône red. Summer finger-food!

When it was time, I deep fried the balls in batches and drained them on paper towels. We served them with a spicy sauce. Yesterday, it was a mix of plain yogurt and Thai sriracha (hot pepper) sauce. I've always heard that it's good to eat hot and spicy food when the weather is hot. The balls were a great accompaniment to a batch of spicy chicken wings that I cooked on the grill. We ate a refreshing garden tomato salad later in the evening.

5 comments:

  1. That looks and sounds delicious. And chick pea flour makes it sound even better.

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  2. These look fantastic! Thanks for inspiring me. Hope you two are having a good summer. :)

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  3. This looks to be a sensible delicious way to be rid of zukes - much better than 'stuffing them'

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  4. Sounds good. Can you buy chickpea flour or do you have to grind your own?

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  5. mitch, yes, very tasty! Chick peas are almost my favorite legume.

    jennifer, thanks! Very good summer, except for the hottest days. Ugh!

    michael, we try to find more ways to eat them. We'll miss them when they're gone. I think.

    emm, we buy it, but now I've forgotten where...

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