Hassleback Courgette

Hassleback Courgette

I first discovered the 'Hassleback' concept when I was in Sweden in 2010 and I have my Swedish Aunt Ia to thank for introducing me to the simplicity of swedish cooking. These special cutters were on sale in a supermarket and I thought they were for cutting 8 slices of cheese off a block at once....but, obviously, they were not! The idea of Hassleback potatoes has stuck with me for a while but for some strange reason, I havn't gone ahead and made them. Perhaps because I have cut so many unnecessary calorie dense foods from my diet.....however I think these will make an appearance at Christmas this year.

And on to the courgette. As I prepare for my competition in 10 days (I compete as a figure athlete in bodybuilding) I have begun to think more and more about the foods I am going to slowly ease back into once I am no longer quite so limited by the size of my sparkly bikini. One food I have been eating quite a bit of in an attempt to fill me up is courgette. I was beginning to get a bit sick of it until I thought today "what if it was baked without the soggy aspect"?
So off I went on a mini flurry of creativity in my kitchen to create something new - and I think I hit the jackpot.

So obviously these babies had to have a little garlic - not raw, squeezed out of a mincer garlic! It had to be roasted softened fragrant garlic...but I had 20 mins to get these together...never mind an hour to roast the garlic bulb. So I separated the cloves, left the skin on and put them in a dry pan on a very low heat. I covered them with a glass cover and every couple of minutes turned them so they wouldn't burn. I turned the heat off and left them for a further 5 mins in the warm pan while I mixed some olive oil, coconut oil and butter with some fresh thyme and rosemary. Then I peeled and smashed the garlic and squeezed it into the butter. I allowed the mix to melt in a pan and just come to a bubble before I turned off the heat.

So, the trick with Hassleback is to allow a thin line of uncut spine to allow the item to fan out as it cooks. To do this, I lay a chopstick down beside the courgette and the knife hit that every time instead of the chopping board. Once this was done, I lay the courgette on tinfoil and bent it to one side so all the layers opened up. This allowed the butter and garlic mix to fall between the layers as I brushed it on generously.

I then sprinkled a pinch of himalayan sea salt and some cracked black pepper along the courgette and put it in the over wrapped in tinfoil for 40 mins at 180 degrees. Once it was done, I opened the foil and sprinkled the courgette with a tablespoon of parmesan cheese and banged up the temperature to 200 degrees for a further 15 minutes to allow everything to crisp up.

Let me tell you, the smell of this alone in the kitchen has my stomach rumbling.
This dish would go wonderfully with a roast or as my crew had it this evening with baked hake.
If you do decide to make it - I would love if you would send me a picture on facebook.com/westcorkfit or on twitter @westcorkfit.
Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas you would like to run by me :)