Tomato Tomatoe

zucchini carpaccio

Zucchini is hands down my favourite vegetable of all time. It’s versatile and can be made into many amazing dishes, from Spaghetti alla Nerano, chocolate zucchini cake, to a simple yet humble zucchini and eggs. When I visited Puglia, the chef and owner of the Masseria I stayed at in Otranto, provided us with a beautiful three course dinner. One of the dishes was zucchini carpaccio which was unexpected and blew me away. In all of my years of eating and cooking with zucchini, I never thought to prepare it crudo or carpaccio style. The zucchini was lightly dressed in lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. The mild and delicate flavour of the zucchini was highlighted perfectly in this preparation.

During the months of June and July, my garden is overflowing with zucchini! I saw a creator on Instagram make a similar zucchini dish to the one I had in Puglia. I knew that this was my sign to make zucchini carpaccio. This salad takes about five minutes to make and uses a few ingredients. The salad is light, refreshing and in my opinion it’s a fantastic way to use summer zucchini.

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zucchini carpaccio

Ingredients

• 2 small or medium sized zucchini
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• lemon zest from half a lemon
• juice from 1/2 a lemon
• good quality extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper
• fresh basil
• cherry tomatoes
• fior di latte

Directions

1. Using a mandolin or sharp knife, slice the zucchini paper thin. Add to a medium sized bowl and grate in fresh garlic and lemon juice. Add lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Gently toss the zucchini rounds in the dressing.
2. Arrange the marinated zucchini on a plate. Top the zucchini with sliced cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and torn pieces of fior fi latte. Drizzle the remaining marinade on top.