Zucchini Slice

Every summer the dreaded zucchini glut arrives. Friends (Huub and Ingrid I'm looking at you) and neighbours insist on offloading gigantic marrow sized things on your doorstep. Or you have yourself made the mistake of allowing more than one zucchini plant to grow, on the grounds that the last time you did that it was the coldest summer on record and your zucchini did not thrive. Well, I think you are safe from that one in these days of increasingly record breaking hot summers...

Half a marrow sized zucchini, seeds removed and tediously grated by hand as we don't own a food processor.

Ingredients

2 large zucchini, grated
1 large onion, chopped
150 g chunky lardons
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
Half a cup of oil
4 eggs
1 cup of grated cheese
Salt and pepper to taste.

Method

Turn the oven on to preheat to 180 C.
Grease a deep square baking dish or a lasagne dish.
Mix all ingredients together thoroughly and pour into the prepared dish.
Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
Leave for 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Can serve 6 as a main, or 12-18 as part of a series of small plates (tapas, aperodinatoire, etc). Serve warm or room temperature, with salad.

A serving for two that I cooked in the air fryer because the weather is so hot at the moment and I didn't want to turn the oven on.

It is curious to think that Europeans have really only been eating zucchini since the 19th century. The ancestor of this rampant and productive squash had arrived from the Americas earlier, but it was so different to anything anyone was used to eating that it took a while to catch on. Zucchini and marrow are the same species, Cucurbita pepo, and the difference is size/maturity. The word zucchini first appeared in Italian cook books in the 1840s, after Milanese gardeners developed a small tender cylindrical dark green squash that became C. p. var cylindrica. The word marrow first appeared in British cook books in the 1820s. Zucchini is first mentioned in print in Britain in the early 20th century, a couple of decades before the word courgette is used in either France or Britain.

Zucchini Slice was a mainstay of Australian summer gatherings when I was growing up. Everybody made it, because everyone had too many zucchini. It has that extreme simplicity and low cost that makes it popular when you are cooking for a gathering or a family. The cheese and bacon ensure it tastes of something, without complication or too much cost.