Zucchini Carpaccio with Feta and Pine Nuts
TIME/SERVINGS
Total: 5 mins
Active: 5 mins
Makes: 4 servings
By Kate Ramos
Make converts out of all your carnivore friends by starting a meal with paper-thin slices of young zucchini, lightly drizzled with olive oil, and finished off with creamy French feta cheese.
What to buy: We made this recipe with standard green zucchini, but it would be equally delicious with any tender summer squash, such as yellow crookneck, pattypan, or gold zucchini. Try using a combination of squash to vary the color on the plate.
This recipe was featured in our 2007 no-cook story.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 medium zucchini or other summer squash, ends trimmed and sliced into paper-thin (about 1/16-inch-thick) rounds
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 4 teaspoons high-quality extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup crumbled French feta cheese
- 3 tablespoons loosely packed fresh mint or chervil leaves, coarsely chopped
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
INSTRUCTIONS
- Combine zucchini rounds and lemon zest in a medium bowl and toss to coat zucchini. Arrange zucchini on a platter, slightly overlapping the slices.
- Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle remaining ingredients over zucchini and serve.
COMMENTS | ADD YOUR OWN
This sort of looks like the Tyler Florence recipe I found on a recent episode of his show. I prepared this over the 4th Holiday, http://suburban-gourmet.com/2007/07/0... His didn't have pine nuts or feta, but it's similar. Nevertheless, yours looks great too! And another spin on this recipe. I'm sure it tastes great too!
Nice, but it's raw zucchini, not carpaccio!
I'm a raw food vegan and this is a good new idea for zucchini. I just found a real non-dairy cheese made from cultured cashew nuts and it would be a great substitute for the feta. Also, dehydrating the zucchini a little might intesify the flavors a bit. Thanks for the tip. www.rawdish.com
Why must the feta be French?
Surely the best feta is Greek...
I'm guessing french feta is creamier
Anonimo - Today the term carpaccio is used variably and often refers to any very thinly sliced presentation of foods, which can range as widely as mushrooms, apple, tomatoes, langoustine, bresaola and trout, and a great many more. The amount of cooking varies from none at all to searing, rare cooking, and fully cooked.
I've eaten a lot of feta from Greek to Bulgarian and despise the grocery store variety. A good French feta is just wonderful and one of the best IMO. It's what I buy most often.
The well known dish is named for Vittore Carpaccio, the Venetian Renaissance painter known for his use of brilliant reds and whites. So the word carpaccio is not an Italian word that defines thin sliced raw meat. Can it be use for zucchini? I don't see why not.
Actually, Teejaweej, Egyptian feta is much creamier than French. It's really lovely. By the way, the reason for French feta's development to begin with was the relaxation of the rules concerning where sheep's milk could come from to make Roquefort. When the country found itself with a glut of sheep's milk, it was decided to ship the excess to Corsica, where they made the feta. Try the recipe with all sorts of different fetas (Egyptian, Bulgarian, French, Greek, etc) and see which one you prefer. You could even try ricotta salata for a different taste.
I made this tonight....I heated the oil first so the zucchini would be just a tad less "raw"...poured the heated oil over the zucchini in the bowl, then added the lemon zest and salt, pine nuts, and because I didn't want to use mint, I used fresh lemon basil from my herb garden. Even before the cheese, it was fabulous...I wasn't able to get french feta so I substituted something called Chaumes that I found....creamy and mild and delicious. This was a wonderful dish.
Loved this - only change I made was to toast the pine nuts. I added the lemon zest and the chopped mint to the sliced zucchini and tossed to keep the slices from sticking together so at serving time only had to arrange on plate, drizzle with oil, kosher salt and fresh black pepper, add the French Feta (lovely stuff) and serve. Plate was empty pretty quickly... This is a keeper for me.