In Celebration of the Courgette
With the children back at home during the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, I have had more mouths to feed and with more time at home, I have enjoyed nurturing my vegetable garden again. It is really important to me to try to live as sustainably as possible and I have been using my outdoor space to grow vegetables, potatoes and herbs to go alongside our slow grown chicken.
One of the easiest things to grow is the courgette. The only thing is, you can end up with a lot of them all at once so, I wanted to share with you my favourite ways to enjoy this wonderful vegetable with our slow grown chicken.
1.Ribbon courgette, herb and mozzarella salad – this salad is a wonderful accompaniment to marinated chicken on the BBQ. If you have fresh radishes to include, the colour combinations are beautiful.
2. Grated into pasta sauce with chicken, garlic, olive oil and fresh herbs. Simply pan fry some chicken breast (or warm up the leftovers from your roast), gently cook the garlic and grate in the courgette to the pan. Serve with lashings of olive oil, fresh chopped herbs and dried chilli flakes. Don’t forget to add a little of the cooking water from the pasta for that authentic Italian finish.
3. Chicken, Courgette and Sage Spiedini with roasted red pepper aioli. If you are entertaining, these mini chicken and courgette skewers are perfect to pop in the mouth as appetisers.
4. Simply pan fried as an accompaniment to roast chicken. Roast chicken doesn’t have to just be for winter and colder days. We love to roast up a chicken in the summer and enjoy the meat for several meals. See our easy spring and summer roast chicken recipe for step by step instructions to enjoy it with fresh courgette, lemon and new potatoes.
5. BBQ courgette alongside our marinated chicken. Fresh courgettes are so magical on the BBQ, cut them lengthways into long strips and coat them in a small amount of olive oil. If you cook them for long enough they go creamy on the inside, but crispy on the outside and make for a balanced meal to enjoy alongside our marinaded chicken.
6. Throw it into a curry – it bulks it out and is a good contrast in texture to chicken. Simply cut your courgette into rounds and add to your favourite curry recipe. You might like to try this with our quick and easy chicken curry.
What have you cooked recently with courgette and Sutton Hoo Chicken? We would love to see photos of your recipes. You can email them to us, or tag us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.