Zucchini, since they were brought to the Old World from America, have firmly entered the culinary traditions of European countries. This vegetable has a neutral taste, and therefore it harmonizes with anything. Want to make a tender vegetable dish? Pour cream or sour cream to the zucchini and stew. Wanted pungent? Zucchini with pepper comes in handy here. This vegetable is good as a side dish for meat. But it can also act as an independent dish. It can also be consumed in salads, as cold and hot appetizers, caviar for sandwiches, stuffed zucchini like peppers or tomatoes. In this article you will find a selection of stewed zucchini recipes. This culinary method of processing products not only saves the cook from unnecessary trouble, but also preserves the useful properties of the ingredients of the dish.
Zucchini stewed in sour cream, with garlic and vegetables
For cooking, it is better to take a young fruit weighing 500-700 grams. We clean it from the skin, and if the zucchini is old - then from the seeds. Cut the pulp into cubes. We do the same with three tomatoes. For two peppers, cut off the top, select the seeds, chop the flesh into strips. In a frying pan we heat the vegetable oil and first fry it over high heat of zucchini. Shuffle them several times so that they are browned on all sides. Then we add pepper and tomatoes, fry for about five minutes. Pour half a glass of sour cream into a bowl. Squeeze three garlic cloves into it through a press, add a pinch of oregano and fresh, finely chopped greens. Pour sour cream with zucchini. Salt and pepper the dish. We make the flame minimal. Cover the pan with a lid. Zucchini stewed in sour cream will be ready in five minutes. This dish goes well with fried meat. It can be eaten in cold form.
Braised zucchini stuffed with meat
We wash two hundred grams of rice groats (preferably round-grain) several times and, pouring water, leave for an hour. If you do not have ready-made minced meat (850 g), then you should skip the pieces of pork and beef through a meat grinder along with the onion. Drive an egg into the minced meat. Make the roast. To do this, peeled and finely chopped onion and carrots are passaged in a small amount of vegetable oil. Put this frying in the meat, add expressed rice, salt and spices, mix. The recipe for stewed zucchini stuffed with meat suggests using ripe, autumn fruits. My three or four pieces, cut off the skin, cut into large pieces of 5-7 centimeters. Take out the seeds with a spoon. In the resulting squash cylinders, lay the stuffing. We place them in a ducklifter or a pan with high walls. Mix a glass of sour cream in a separate bowl with 75 g of tomato paste. Fill it with zucchini. The liquid should completely cover the zucchini. If not, add water. Put a few bay leaves, peppercorns, a pinch of aromatic herbs. Salt the dish. Close and set on fire. After boiling, fasten the fire to a minimum. Stew until rice is cooked.
Zucchini with chicken
Above, we described a dish where vegetables were "framing" the meat. This recipe for stewed zucchini offers to cook everything together. The "overseas" vegetable is saturated with the taste and aroma of chicken. The leek stalk (about 100 g) is washed and chopped with rings. Four hundred grams of chicken fillet cut into small strips along the fibers. If the squash is young (one large or two small), you can not clean them. Cut them into small cubes. Finely chop a half bunch of fresh parsley. Pour a little vegetable oil into the pan and fry the leek. When it is gilded, add the chicken fillet. Fry until the meat turns white. Add zucchini. Salt, season with pepper. Fry, stirring regularly, with a quarter of an hour. Fill a glass of sour cream, in which we interfere with parsley. Cover the pan and reduce the heat. Zucchini stewed with meat will be ready in ten minutes.
Vegetable stew with pesto
This delicious dish can be eaten in fasting. It is absolutely vegetarian. If you have ready pesto - well, but if not - you can make the sauce yourself. To do this, send a glass of basil leaves, two peeled garlic cloves and six tablespoons of olive oil to a blender. Pour a pinch of salt. If necessary, add water. Add half a glass of grated Parmesan and, after stirring the sauce well, hide it in the refrigerator. And now we’ll deal with stewed zucchini with potatoes and other vegetables. In a stewpan, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil and three bay leaves. We put two chopped onion rings and seven cloves of garlic cut in half. Add fresh herbs - thyme, sage leaves. Let’s cover the stewpan and let it simmer over low heat. Then add 300 g of coarsely chopped carrots and the same amount of young potatoes (if it is small, the whole tubers are put). Next, lay out in layers, without interfering: 200 g of green beans, chopped yellow Bulgarian pepper, 450 g of young zucchini, cut with "washers", and five tomatoes, which should be peeled in advance. Salt the dish, season with spices to your taste. We extinguish on low heat under the lid for about an hour. If vegetables do not produce enough juice, you can add water. At the end of the stewing process, add a can of canned beans (400 g). Serve with pesto.
"Vegetable Waltz"
This dish is a stew of overseas vegetables (eggplant, zucchini and zucchini) stewed with carrots, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers and celery. It turns out very bright and tasty. We take all vegetables in two pieces. Only four peppers are needed - preferably a different color. Instead of two carrots, you can take 200 g of the Korean counterpart. If the celery root is large, let’s do one thing. All hard vegetables are cut into strips. In vegetable oil, fry onions, add carrots. When it becomes golden, put the rest of the vegetables, except for the tomatoes. Tomatoes are added at the very end, when the stewed zucchini with onions and eggplant is almost ready. You can pour tomatoes with boiling water, and then immediately with ice water. So the skin will separate very easily. Or you can just make an incision on the tomato and rub it into a common boiler. Then the peel will remain in your hands. Tomatoes start up juice. Then we pepper and salt the dish. Stew under the lid for about another seven minutes.
Braised zucchini in a slow cooker
The kitchen assistant will prepare a delicious dish almost on his own. We set the unit in the "Frying" mode. Pour a little vegetable oil into the bowl. Introduce the finely chopped onion. Fry until golden brown. Zucchini, carrots and two bell peppers cut into strips. Add to the onion. Set the "Extinguishing" mode. Salt and pepper the dish. No water, unlike cooking on the stove, does not need to be added. Braised zucchini in a slow cooker will be ready in three quarters of an hour.
Turkey with vegetables
Under tender dietary meat and side dish appropriate is required. And if you have a pound of turkey or chicken breast fillet, try making zucchini stewed with meat. Wash the fillet and cut into small pieces. Fry in vegetable oil. No need to bring the meat to full readiness. It is enough if it is simply covered with a golden light crust. We shift the meat into a stewing container. And in the pan we send two chopped tomatoes. While they are fried, we cut the zucchini into cubes (if it is young, then you do not need to clean it). Tomatoes shift to the chicken. Fry the zucchini. We also transfer it to the stew-pan. The same principle applies to bell peppers, three potatoes (they need to be fried for seven minutes), onions and carrots. Season with salt and spices. Pour water into the stewpan so that it covers all the contents. We put the stew under the lid over low heat. The dish is ready in half an hour.
Garnish of potatoes and zucchini
We clean two onions, finely chop. Send to fry in vegetable oil. We clean ten potato tubers, cut into strips. Add to the bow. Potatoes should not be fried for a long time - 7 minutes will be enough. During this time, we will clean the seeds of two bell peppers, cut them into strips and add to the vegetables. Fry for another ten minutes. We clean two zucchini, cut into circles. Roll each disc in flour. Fry the zucchini in another pan until golden. Arrange to vegetables. Season the stewed zucchini with potatoes with tomato sauce, to which we add three garlic cloves squeezed through a press and spices. Cover the stewpan and simmer for about half an hour over low heat.
Instead of a conclusion
There are a lot of recipes for stewed zucchini. But the basic principle is one, and we think you understand it. First, vegetables and meat should be fried until golden brown, and then cooked over low heat under a lid. The main thing is that there is a liquid medium that allows the ingredients of the dish to stew rather than fry. It can be plain water or tomato paste (or juice made with fresh tomatoes), sour cream, cream and even white table wine. Having shown a little bit of imagination, you can cook zucchini at least every day, but every time you get a new dish.