My recent crumble conquering led me to make up a savoury crumble, loads and loads of courgettes in a cheesy sauce with a breadcrumb topping. Healthy right? I served it with French ‘coquillette’ pasta, it’s a kind of comforting pasta you get served as a kid with lots of butter and gruyere but you can subs macaroni. Here it was perfect for adding a carb base to the meal and mopping up all the cheese sauce and I made a red cabbage and carrot slaw, it’s the easiest thing to make in a food processor and ups your veg. It tastes great with a balsamic red wine and mustard vinaigrette, this dish would also be lovely with a green salad as a light evening meal, I’m just a bit of a pig.
The trick with a cheese sauce is to fry off an onion in the butter before you add flour and ye shall never have lumps, for this recipe you also need to make it quite thick, because the courgettes give off a lot of water as they cook. You can also layer this dish with spinach if you want for a two-pronged attack of green veg.
Cheese Courgette Bake Ingredients
Four courgettes, thinly sliced lengthways and blanched
Block of cheese
Pint or so of milk
Stale bread, toasted and grated into breadcrumbs
Flour, butter
Smoked paprika, hot sauce, s&p
Make your cheese sauce by frying off the onions in the butter and adding in the flour once they onions have softened. Slowly add room temp milk, stirring to stop lumps. Chuck in your seasoning, I used smoked paprika and hot sauce to give the cheese sauce a kick up the bum. Don’t know if I’m preaching to the converted here, but you all know to turn off the pan before adding your grated cheese yeah? Then just place your courgette slices in an ovenproof dish, and pour the sauce over. Chuck on the breadcrumbs and some more cheese and bake on a medium heat until it looks all bubbly and crisp.
