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Zucchini and friends: late summer’s greatest plate-mates

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By Leslie Brenner

Nature has a remarkable ability to create harmony on a plate. That’s why if you stick with what’s emphatically in season, it’s hard to go wrong.

This time of year, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, okra and corn are bountiful in American markets and gardens, and they’re incredibly easygoing. Throw them together in nearly any combination in pan or on grill, their flavors start singing, and everybody wins.

You might think of zucchini as their bandleader. Cartoonishly prolific in late summer, the affable summer squash plays well with everyone. So do tomato, its umami-packed pal, and peppers, whether sweet or hot. They’re all Meso-American in origin, as is corn. Zucchini is a cultivar of Cucurbito pepo, which gardeners have been growing in parts of what’s now Texas and all over Mexico for 8,000 to 10,000 years.

Okra is in peak season as well. Not a native to the Americas, its appearance here was diasporic; it was grown by in the Carolinas by enslaved African people. Today, stateside, it’s mostly grown in Florida and Texas.

Eggplant is also an immigrant to America, having traveled here — and to the Mediterranean — from Asia. Botanically it’s a cousin to tomatoes and peppers, all being nightshades.

So, how to throw them together deliciously?

Try a shrimp sauté with zucchini, tomato and corn, like the one shown above. It shows best with wild shrimp from the Gulf, which the Meso-Americans would also have enjoyed. Our recipe includes serrano chiles, crisply grilled okra and lots of cilantro, but it’s endlessly riffable. Recently I skipped the okra, swapped the serranos for sweet, mild red bell pepper, and used fresh basil in place of cilantro — giving it a Cal-Italian vibe.

Shrimp sauté with zucchini, corn, red bell pepper and basil

RECIPE: Shrimp Sauté with Texas Veg

Whether you’re doing a shrimp sauté (chicken works great too) with this group of veg, or just throwing the vegetable pals together in a pan, herbs and spices can add pizzazz and depth. Besides cilantro and basil, thyme, parsley, marjoram, oregano work great with these guys.

Oregano is front-and-center in one of my all-time favorite dishes by Yotam Ottolenghi, Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa. Cherry tomatoes and lemon zest add bright exclamation points. Enriched with egg and rounded out with breadcrumbs, it makes a fine main course, as well as a spectacular accompaniment to grilled lamb or chicken. The dish may have been born across the pond, but it’s very much at home on either side of it.

Stuffed zucchini (courgettes) with pine-nut salsa from Ottolenghi Simple

Zucchini and friends, Mediterranean-style

What if eggplant is one of the friends? Think Mediterranean, and reach for a roasted ratatouille.

Why roasted? Disenchanted with watery, soggy renditions of the French favorite, I thought maybe sending the eggplant, peppers, zucchini and garlic into the oven for a spell would deepen their flavors and keep them more distinct.

It did indeed, and now I’d never make ratatouille any other way.

It’s a delightful dish for summer-into-fall.

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A gorgeous salade niçoise may be the perfect Olympics-watching platter

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By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles about dishes suited to watching and celebrating the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.]

It’s cool, it’s French, it’s healthful, it’s grazeable and it’s a meal on one plate: That’s why the composed salad known as salade niçoise is the ideal offering for Paris Olympics-watching.

Our version of salad niçoise is not the original real-deal: Citizens of Nice, France (from where the salad gets its name) might kick you out of their town for including potatoes and green beans, rather than fava beans and raw artichokes, the OG ingredients.

That’s OK: Dishes evolve, and sometimes it’s for the better. It’s hard to argue that what much of the world, and even France outside of Nice, calls a salad niçoise isn’t terrific. Slices of ripe tomato, cooled cooked potato, hard-boiled eggs, haricots verts, flaked tuna, radishes, anchovies and niçoise olives set on greens and dressed with vinaigrette is a marvelous thing. (The OG version used only olive oil, no vinegar, and didn’t always include tuna!)

How to elevate your evolved salade niçoise game? Use the best jarred or canned tuna (preferably olive-oil-packed) and anchovies you can find, Cook the eggs carefully so their yolks are more jammy than powdery. Use deliciously ripe heirloom tomatoes, and finish the salad with radishes and basil leaves — both of which the OG version often included.

Finally, use real niçoise olives if you can find them — it’s getting harder and harder in my neck of the woods. If you can’t, kalamatas will do.

For Olympics-watching, you might want to put out the salad un-dressed, with a pitcher of vinaigrette on the side, and let everyone drizzle their own. A sliced baguette, maybe a French cheese or two for après-salade, and you’ve got a dinner worthy of a podium finish.

RECIPE: Salade Niçoise

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