The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

So, as I told you in another post, I’ve got a zucchini the size of a Weinermobile in my kitchen.It’s a little bit frightening; it’s a monster. It weighs four pounds, ten ounces, more than my nephew weighed at birth. You could use it as a neck roller, or to clobber a thief or hit a softball. Add some detailing (a couple of olive eyeballs, a red pepper grin), and this vegetable would scare kids on Halloween. But I opted to chop it to pieces and make zucchini chowder.

I half expected the monster to rear up and bite me when I cut through that 4-inch diameter. (Luckily, this did not happen.) Inside, I found some gnarly seeds, so I dug out the little buggers and planted them so I can gift friends with monsters next year. (Actually, I contemplated planting them. If the spirit moves me, I will take the next step and actually commit them to the earth, but this may not happen as I am rather lazy.)

I chopped up a few cups of zuke, I gathered some potatoes and an onion, and a couple of blanched ears of corn leftover from a dinner I served to carbo-phobes the night before. A little broth, a little cream, and a little basil (which I actually did plant myself), and I had it going on.

Now what the hell do I do with the remaining 3 pounds of zucchini?

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium-sized, sweet onion, chopped

2 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾-inch chunks

4 cups chopped Monster Zucchini

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 cups chicken broth

¼ cup cream

Kernels scraped from 2 ears of blanced corn (or two cups frozen corn)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1’4 cup chopped fresh basil

½ cup freshly grated Reggiano-Parmagiana cheese

Melt the butter with the oil in a large saucepan or soup pan over medium low heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent and soft, about ten minutes. Stir in the potatoes and cook for about two minutes. Add the zucchini and cook for another two minutes, stirring a few times. Add the salt and pepper, and then pour in the broth, raise the heat slightly and bring the soup to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are tender, about fifteen minutes.

Puree the soup in a food processor and return to the pot, adding a little more broth if you like a thinner soup. Add the corn and the cream, return the soup to a simmer and cook for two minutes. Stir in the herbs and adjust the seasonings. Serve hot, sprinkled with the cheese.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Cool Products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.