As a backyard farmer, we often grow Boom or Bust with our veggies. Courgettes or zucchini are one of those abundant crops. While you can’t grow them in the winter time, it is a blessing, as you are generally so tired of them, come winter. Every day, there seems to be two or three of them to harvest, and if you don’t look properly, a small courgette camouflaged in the virulent greenery, can almost double in size every day!
I often make courgette cake, Barb’s courgette patties and everything else we eat gets a liberal dose of courgettes, from pizza to pasta, stew to soup, salad and more. I planted 2 seedlings of a zucchini Rampicante as well as 3 normal zucchs this season. I was expecting the usual 1m long Rampicante zucchs but boy, these guys are promiscuous and I think they had sex with a Kamokamo (a Maori squash) and ended up squat and fat instead of long and slender!
I picked these big guys tonight, alarmed that if I left them any longer, they would get too big to fit on my kitchen chopping board! With a courgette glut already in the garden, kitchen and fridge bursting at full capacity, I remembered a passing conversation I just had a couple of days ago with my lovely Indian friend, Jas. She’d jokingly said once my Loki (an Indian squash, long and white-skinned) was ready for harvest, I could share her recipe as long as I mentioned her. Well Jas, who would have known, here I am blogging this recipe you gave me sooner than I had anticipated!!
My Loki is nowhere ready to harvest and make Loki Sabzi with, but as I looked at these massively fat zucchini, my brain formulated a plan….they are a squash, just like a Loki, so why not substitute them in the meantime?? Guess what? Works just as well. It’s a brilliant recipe, so easy and simple, but so tasty and delicious! Serve with some rice for a light yet nutritious meal. Sabzi refers to a meatless vegetable dish with turmeric.
What you need:
- A Pressure Cooker
- Sharp Knife
Loki (Courgette) Sabzi Recipe:
- 1 Loki or large courgette
- 1 onion
- 1 big tomato
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 TBspn ghee (I use coconut oil)
- 1 tspn turmeric
- 2 fresh green chillies (I used frozen chopped red chilli)
- Salt to taste
Method:
Peel the Loki or courgette, then chop it into small bite sized pieces. Chop the onion into small pieces. Place everything in a pressure cooker, close and allow to cook (there is enough water in the courgette or Loki so it won’t burn). Cook till the steam rises and allow to cook for another 5-6 mins. Turn off and allow it to continue to cook passively for a further 10 minutes.
Serve sabzi with some fresh fluffy white rice. This simple recipe belies the great flavour! Thanks to my friend Jas, you too can now cook sabzi like an Indian gourmet chef!! Yay, I’ve processed one big fat courgette, now to get the others processed……looks like we may eat sabzi all week long!
Arohanui
Jizzy
Living the Green Life 