Hey, that zucchini looks pretty healthy…let me help you with that!

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of the best parts of the CSA box we get from Full Circle Farm is the fact that we are trying vegetables that we’d never have bought in the store before.  Zucchini is one of those things that I haven’t had a ton of experience with and haven’t necessarily always enjoyed.  So when we got 6 zucchinis in our most recent box, I had to come up with something to do with them.  It was a busy couple weeks with not a lot of time to experiment, so we went with a fail-safe method…fried!

When I was in Florence, Italy for four weeks a few summers ago, we had pre-arranged lunches at this small restaurant just out of the city center.  I can’t remember the name of it, but almost every day we had smaller-than-shoestring potatoes and zucchini, lightly fried, just a little crunchy, mostly soft.  They were amazing!  This was the first time I had eaten zucchini and enjoyed it…the flavor of the zucchini itself came through and melted nicely into the light frying they had done.  I looked forward to this side whenever we had our group lunches at this place….Yum!

I had made a similar type of zucchini for Matt the last time got them from Full Circle Farm. I wanted to try something different this time.  We had planned to have soup and wanted something crunchy to go along with it, so we went with a beer-battered type of fry on the zucchini.  Next time we get this vegetable, we are definitely NOT frying it!!  We’ve also done steamed fish with zucchini and yellow squash slices and other types of dishes with zucchini, so I know we can do it!

This was a really basic recipe…flour + beer.  Coat thick “fries” of zucchini in a light dusting of flour, dip into a mix of beer and flour that has been sitting for an hour or so, fry in oil at 360 degrees.  The second batch cooked for a little longer than the first, so we had half that were a bit firmer and half that had zucchini that was super super soft.  I think I preferred the soft because of the way it contrasted with the crispy crispy coating, but if you are a huge zucchini fan, the crunch of the vegetable would probably be extremely satisfying for you.  They fried for around 5 minutes…this would vary depending on the heat of your oil and the size of your zucchini.  Keep an eye on them and watch the batter turn golden brown.  With fried things, you always want to pull them from the oil at a lighter color than you ultimately want them to be…they’ll keep cooking just a bit after you pull them out, and you don’t want them to be too dark!!

While I was frying up the zucchini (Which look WAY shinier than they actually were because of our camera’s flash), Matt made some Pacific Natural Food’s Buttery Sweet Corn soup with added canned corn kernels and some garlic toast to go on the side.  We had honey mustard dressing on the side for dipping!  This made a TON of zucchini fries and we didn’t get through all of them, but they’d make a fun appetizer for a big group of people because they go a long way!

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