For someone with at most a passing interest in all things zucchini and summer squash the archives of this site tell a different story. I mean how about a pie with some zucchini bread fritters or zucchini bread pancakes? Maybe a rice gratin with chips or my favorite 5-minute side dish are more your thing? The 40-plus recipes from summers past would make you think I jump for joy when the inevitable glut of green and yellow piles at the Greenmarkets in August hits; instead I approach them with a wary eye.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 Kendall Jackson | 2015-09-10 20:17:20 |  229 Views |
Recipe for gratin with tomatoes and summer squash
I blame my strange need for a challenge. I find zucchini and summer squash a little… slimy and limp in most dishes. It’s usually not seasoned well. But instead of seeing my failure to see what others are doing in a dish as a badge of honor it bothers me. I want to be proven wrong. Show me the light crooknecks and cocozzelles!
And here to my delight I was once again shown the error of my assumptions. Summer squash gets the Suzanne Goin treatment which is to say it’s raised to one of its highest callings. It’s salted to remove moisture then tossed with shallots Gruyère browned breadcrumbs and finally a salsa verde (imagine a mixed herb pesto without the cheese which you absolutely have to make extra because it goes well with everything) before being baked together into something crispy complex and downright fancy. Tuesdays are supposed to be celebrated after all.
Good to know: We usually call summer squash summer squash when it's yellow but zucchini when it's green. Actually they're both summer squashes and can be used interchangeably in recipes because they all taste and cook the same. Of course when exchanging use the weight and not the number of squashes because bat-sized zucchini are a real thing.
