"so outstanding it shook the two courgette-fatigued fellows with whom I shelter out of their summer-squash stupor." Cooks Without Borders
Tonight's dinner has to be light, and it doesn't have to generate too much heat. Light because it's David's wine night out with the neighbours and they always seem to have a lot of food - well that's what he tells me anyway. Not much heat because we are in the 30s and David gets a bit paranoid about turning on ovens, etc. But I'm going to ignore this stricture, because theoretically at least it will only be on for quarter of an hour. And we are both out after dinner anyway - he to his wine, I to my books.
My prime motivation for choosing the above dish is that I have one last zucchini from Monika which is on the verge of going off. It's one of those paler fatter ones, so I thought it would be ideal for stuffing and when I saw this Ottolenghi recipe for Stuffed courgettes with oregano and pine nut salsa somewhere recently I knew it was for me - not just because of the zucchini but also for the little carton of oregano which is also nearing it's last days and a carton of cherry tomatoes with a use by date looming. So it was sort of serendipity. It originally was published in his book Simple, which, as an added bonus, I have. It means I don't have to print it out and waste more paper and electricity. The photograph on the left is from the book, on the right from his Facebook page and the picture at the top of the page is from The Guardian. Which just goes to show that even the author of the recipe doesn't get quite the same result every time.
It's vegetarian which gives it another tick in the box - the stuffing consists of the middle of the zucchini, cheese, breadcrumbs, squashed cherry tomatoes, garlic and an egg to hold it all together. Plus half of the salsa of pine nuts, lemon zest and oregano. And at the end you drizzle with the rest of the salsa to which you have added lemon juice, salt and oil. Which is all so very Ottolenghi. So now all I have to do is make it - you can prepare it in advance as well - an added bonus - and I also have to remember to take a photograph for tomorrow's post.
Often when I choose to make something from a cookbook I find that other people have tried it out - usually just two or three, but this time I found so many that I thought I would do a round-up of them all just to show you the variety of approaches the internet has to these things.
So let's begin with three videos. The first two are from YouTube. Number one is from a northern English guy called James Hibbert who calls himself Happy Hungry Hibby and It's longish - a touch over 11 minutes, but in the interests of 'research' I watched it all.
To sum up - somewhat boring (and annoying), a couple of useful tips along the way, BUT - even though he seemed to be working from the actual recipe which was sitting in front of him he made some changes - minor ones, like using coriander instead of oregano, plus a bit of dried oregano, and garlic from a jar, all of which he did acknowledge, and rather more serious ones like missing out the crushed cherry tomatoes in the stuffing and also the final pine nut salsa. I suspect that these are big mistakes. However, I am going to put it down to the sort of thing we all do when we don't read the recipe properly - you know the kind of thing - putting in the whole special mix instead of just half which has to be added at the end. Even so it's had 635 views, though only 5 likes with one commenter - the only one - saying: "did you forget the tomatoes?" In lots of was I found this somewhat morale boosting, as I actually thought that I would do a better job of the cooking. And did I mention that the filming was pretty amateurish, as was the presentation? Jamie's videos are longish, but they are very instructive and mildly entertaining - unless you can't stand Jamie Oliver.
Then there was Dominique's Kitchen, which took the other approach of no person in view, just speeded up hands doing the whole thing with ingredients and instructions flashing across the screen - 2 1/2 minutes which TikTok does too but even faster in a video from Zero Rubbish. Both of them rather more professional - and useful. Although you would need to keep pressing the Pause button if you were cooking from them.
Whilst I am still feeling marginally critical here are two others, which do not even acknowledge the recipe as Ottolenghi's. From looking at their posts you would think they have made it up themselves, which to my mind is exceedingly dishonest - Connie's Kitchen - which does however have lots of pictures of process and Life's Bounty - no acknowledgement but she does suggest alternatives, such as walnuts instead of pine nuts.
Then there are a couple that don't even give you the recipe - they just link to the original - well if you are lucky. Years of Practice didn't even do that - they just had a picture. There was no link to a recipe. Financial Mechanic - after a long preamble, which was mostly praising Ottolenghi, showed pictures of several Ottolenghi recipes, including the one in question but no link - and a low score of 2*. Lindy Recipe did provide the link to the original Guardian recipe, and also commented on the dish, so no picture other than the original Guardian one :
"She surprised me by coming over and I had only two left, so it ended as a starter. See, what a versatile dish, it can be anything!"
But oops - I guess this is mostly what I do.
Then there are those, which, it seems to me are the vast majority of food blogs out there, which basically just provide the recipe, which I am told is all some people want. Examples: Blythe's blog; Umami just uses a not very good scan of the picture in the book; Santy Coy on the Cookpad website; 4 Passion Food which is Moroccan and very slow to load.
However we now begin to see differences in appearance.
Then there are those who do try to put a little bit of personality into it in some way, even if like Marble Counter Cook on Instagram you don't really get a recipe. What you get here is a tempting picture and some tempting text which gives you the general idea:
"pretty darn good, mainly because it features a rich and cheesy stuffing ... So many great flavours and textures. After being baked in the oven for just 15 minutes, these little boats develop a golden crust with a slight crunch to it, made even better by a lemony and herby pine nut salsa to drizzle over everything."
Moonology Num Num - raves about Ottolenghi calling him 'bloody brilliant' and 'the absolutely incomparable Ottolenghi' but uses the official picture from The Guardian.
Happy Retirees Kitchen is Australian - and a retiree to boot. It includes a bit of personal rambling about the Tokyo Olympics at the start but also has some useful notes. The writer says it is 'inspired by' Ottolenghi but she doesn't really seem to change the recipe much, if at all.
The writer of The View from Great Island in California does admit to adapting the recipe - mostly by adding sausagemeat to the stuffing, and in Amsterdam the lady of A Pinch of Saffron serves it with meatballs.
I think my personal favourite would be Cooks without Borders mostly because they, like Happy Hungry Hibby made mistakes but were honest about it - actually thought they may have improved it - and also tried to express why they loved the recipe so much:
"After we made and enjoyed this dish, we realized we screwed up an instruction, and unwittingly neglected to stir half of the pine-nut-and-oregano salsa into the stuffing. Therefore we had twice as much salsa to top them with as we were meant to (which is reflected in our photograph). In any case, the dish was a knockout; perhaps it was a happy mistake. We have since tried it the originally intended way and enjoyed that, too, but we find our accidental everything-on-top tweak to be a happy improvement."
"Its filling is rich with Parmesan and egg, bright with height-of-season heirloom cherry tomatoes, plumped with bread crumbs and set with a golden-brown crust inside a perfectly roasted shell that maintained integrity but melted at fork’s touch. On top of that, a deeply herbal salsa — at once dusky (oregano) and bright (thanks to lemon) — made meaty and crunchy with toasted pine nuts."
Having now toured the different versions of this obviously popular dish I now wonder why people just present it without comment. I mean why would you not just follow the original version on The Guardian website? As for those who don't even say where the recipe comes from - have they just forgotten to acknowledge the author or are they really trying to say that it is theirs? Deploring. I completely understand - and indeed applaud those who give an Ottolenghi recipe a go and then report to the world how they found it, how you might improve it, or change it. Even a message to the world that it was awful is worth doing. In fact I often look to see if somebody else has had a go at a recipe I am about to attempt.
I also now realise that I'm probably the worst kind of the lot, in that although I might acknowledge and refer to an original recipe and variations thereof I often don't actually comment much on what I made myself. Mind you, having possibly bored you with this list recapping what I do tonight, might be the final straw!
YEARS GONE BY
February 12 - Happy 80 years little sister
2024 - Allspice
2023 - Nothing
2022 - Snippets
2020 - Gnocchi alla Romana
2019 - Nothing
2018 - Nothing
2017 - Spoilt for choice
Zuccini zounds zmashing 🤣