Serves 4
Courgettes can be a little bland on their own, but their mildness is a perfect foil for a punchy sauce like salsa verde or pesto. Griddling brings a smoky sweetness to complement the salty-sour herb dressing and makes this dish a great accompaniment for roast meat, fish or even a plate of scrambled eggs. Herbs are packed with minerals and antioxidants, and the salsa verde stimulates the digestive process, so it’s worth making extra sauce to add to other meals. Use garlic plus oil if you don’t need to eat low FODMAP - recipe for garlic oil follows the main recipe.
3 medium courgettes
a small bunch of flat leaf parsley
half a bunch of mint
a small bunch of basil
1 tablespoon of salted capers (well rinsed)
2 anchovies
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
2-3 tsp of red wine vinegar (or lemon juice)
black pepper
100ml garlic oil *see recipe
Scrub the courgettes and peel into long, wide strips with a vegetable peeler. Put a griddle pan over a high heat and griddle the strips on one side, one layer at a time until you can see the char marks coming through on the edges, use tongs to transfer the cooked courgette to a mixing bowl and repeat with another layer of strips. If you don’t have a griddle pan, try cooking the strips under a really hot grill, just until they wilt – you won’t have the char marks or flavour though.
To make the salsa verde, pick the leaves from the parsley, mint and basil and put into a blender with the capers, anchovies, mustard, wine vinegar, lots of black pepper and ¾ of the garlic oil. Process in bursts, scraping down until you have a coarse, loose paste. Add more garlic oil or vinegar if you think it needs it. Alternatively, chop everything very finely on a board and then mix with the vinegar and garlic oil in a bowl or pestle and mortar. Combine the salsa verde with the courgettes while still warm and serve straight away.
Garlic oil
The FODMAPs in garlic can present real problems for some people as they are much higher than in other members of the onion family. The fructans in garlic can be rendered more digestible by long slow cooking, so this is one method of reducing the side effects of garlic – although it won’t do anything for your garlic breath, in order to neutralise that eat something raw containing parsley, apple, pear or celeriac. Your ultimate goal should be to improve your gut health to a point where garlic does not present any problems, but in the meantime, this garlic oil gives the flavour of raw garlic to salad dressings and dips without the pain.
6 cloves of garlic
150ml olive oil
lidded jar
Take the papery skins off the garlic, slice thinly and pop into the jar with the olive oil. Leave to macerate for at least an hour, but ideally 6-8 hours before straining out the garlic through a small sieve. Refrigerate the oil if not using within the next 24 hours and use within a week.