What do you do when your Big Man comes home with about 15 mammoth courgettes and you´re the only one in the house who really enjoys them? Well, you have to give a few away to a courgette loving neighbour, and then get creative.
The courgette loving neighbour gave me a recipe for her courgette bread which looks delicious and rather like my Banana Bread recipe. As soon as I´ve made it I´ll let you know how it goes. Then I made some little courgette pancakes, but more of those another time. And then I thought it was time to tackle some pickled courgettes.
These remind me of special Italian family meals when I was younger – lots of salamis and pickled vegetables as a big Antipasto. It´s been years since I made them, and I used mustard powder and turmeric which is not so Italian, I have to confess.
I used a recipe I found on the BBC Good Food Website with a few small tweaks.
500g courgettes, very finely sliced (I used a mandolin slicer)
500ml white wine vinegar
140g brown sugar
1 tsp mustard powder (I used Colemans English Mustard)
1 tsp mustard seeds
4 dried cayenne chilies, crumbled (use less if you like)
1 tsp ground turmeric
Sprinkle the courgette slices with salt and then cover with ice cold water and leave for an hour. Drain and pat dry. Meanwhile put the rest of the ingredients into a saucepan and heat to dissolve the sugar and leave to bubble for a couple of minutes.
While the pickling liquid is cooling down a little, pack the courgettes into two sterilised jars, pour the liquid over and seal tightly.
The recipe says to keep them in the fridge and that they will keep chilled for a couple of months. I have them in the larder which is cool. They will taste great in a few days, but I had a few slices that wouldn´t fit into the jars which I covered with a drop of the pickling liquid and ate that evening…and they were delicious!
Chica Andaluza 