Zucchini Carpaccio with Feta and Pine Nuts Recipe
By
Kate Ramos
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Start your next meal with a vegetarian version of carpaccio: paper-thin slices of young zucchini lightly drizzled with olive oil and topped off with creamy 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 as part of our no-cook story.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 medium zucchini or other summer squash, ends trimmed and sliced into paper-thin rounds
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 4 teaspoons high-quality extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup crumbled 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 salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle remaining ingredients over zucchini and serve.
Beverage pairing: Do Ferreiro Albariño, Spain. This Albariño has zest and brightness but is not simple. It has great minerality and merges lush fruit flavors with stony, earthy tones. It will be a lively companion to the vegetables.
Wow, I was a bit skeptical at first, but the flavours are great - you get lots of complexity in addition to the freshness. I ate a whole pie plate of it for dinner, and didn't get sick of it!!
Thanks flashdance, I had no idea!
Miss Habibi,
"Carpaccio" has come to refer to the preparation itself, rather than just the italian raw meat dish most people are familiar with. That is to say, the treatment of laying paper-thin slices of anything flat across a platter and sprinkling yummy things over the top.
How could I have lived without this dish all these years? Thank you for this fabulous, delicious and easy crowd-pleaser.
This is an old recipe, but it is one of the most guaranteed winners on this planet. I have served it to guests many times, and can't remember anyone not liking it...indeed almost everyone asks for the recipe. On a scale of 1-10, this is at least a 12!
Sooo.. pardon my ignorance, but why is this called carpaccio instead of just "salad"?
After my husband brought four garden grown zucchini last night, I made two breads and realized I needed to find another use for the leftovers. This recipe caught my eye - i doubled it, brought it to a neighborhood gathering, and very little was leftover. I also toasted the pine nuts to bring out the flavor. Delish!
I am a confirmed carnivore & tolerate veggies. This recipe was great! My husband, who does not like Feta of any nationality, requested grated cheddar on his half & and enjoyed it. I also recommend toasting the pine nuts. A definite keeper.
This was great. The kids weren't thrilled, but I was surprised when the wife declared it a hit. It was a nice, late summer treat.
I made this over the weekend. My store didn't have either mint or chervil, so I went with dill, which seemed to be in keeping with the middleeasternness of some of the other ingredients. Tasty and refreshing, and didn't have to heat up the kitchen.
Hey, guys. Here's a few comments:
Purpledove: We don't like the harshness of lemon juice, which is why we went for lemon zest. If you don't like lemon zest, you could just place a few slices of whole lemon on top to infuse the dish with the flavor without any of the harshness.
As for the feta, you could really use any kind. We liked that French feta is relatively mild and a bit creamier than most Greek fetas. But, as cheeseguysgirl says, go ahead, experiment, and decide which feta you like best.
My family aren't fans of lemon zest. Wonder if one could substitute fresh lemon juice instead, any thoughts?
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.
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.
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'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.
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'm guessing french feta is creamier
Why must the feta be French?
Surely the best feta is Greek...
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
Nice, but it's raw zucchini, not carpaccio!
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!