This combination of four dishes is a great way to use the abundant courgettes and beans available at this time of year. Of course each of these dishes can be used separately, the fritters are lovely as a breakfast dish or cold spread with butter. The tomatoey garlicky beans are a dish we often had in the Greek islands and it’s a simple way of making beans even better. These roast courgettes or scallopini in this case, are salted first and then roasted with garlic to caramelisation, they are not soggy they are almost chewy and so yummy. The courgette salad is included for a fresh rawness to compliment the other more oily dishes.Ingredients.

for the fritters

• 2 courgettes
• plenty of fresh herbs, I am using parsley and chives.
• 2 large eggs or 3 small
• 2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds or you could use coconut flour.
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.
• plenty of coconut oil for frying.

for the roast courgettes

• a large pile of courgettes or scallopini, they shrink quite a bit during cooking so you need more than you think.
• a bunch of fresh thyme.
• 10 fat cloves of garlic.
• 2 heaped tablespoons of coconut oil.

for the beans

• a large pile of green beans, either french or runner.
• 2 large tomatoes.
• 3 fat cloves of garlic
• 3 tablespoons of good olive oil. I am using Weka olive oil produced in Nelson New Zealand.

for the salad

• 1 courgette.
• 1 small bunch of arugula or other rocket.
• 1 tablespoon of black sesame seeds, optional.
• 1 tablespoon of good olive oil.
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.
  

  

  

For the roast courgettes, chop the courgettes into chunks about 1 – 2 cm square add to a bowl with 2 teaspoons of  salt and leave for 15 minutes so that some of the water is extracted. They will soften a bit. Melt the coconut oil in a roasting pan then add the courgettes, the 10 cloves of garlic, don’t bother to peel them and the thyme, no need to remove the stalks. These need roasting at 200c fan for 45 minutes.

Stir every 15 minutes.

While the courgettes are roasting make the fritters. Grate the courgettes and put onto a couple of sheets of kitchen paper to squeeze out as much liquid as you can. You can use a clean tea towel for this too. If you are using kitchen paper it will disintegrate a little as you squeeze hard but no matter it is easy to extract the paper from the squeezed pulp.

Empty the courgette pulp into a bowl and add the chopped herbs, the eggs, the ground flax seeds and the baking powder, plus a scant teaspoon of salt.

Stir everything together and then drop in large spoonfuls into a frying pan with plenty of coconut oil. They will rise a bit while cooking, then when the top starts to look a bit firm flip them over and cook the other side for a few minutes. This amount will make about 8 fritters, keep them warm as you cook the rest.

While the fritters are cooking you can make the beans, chop the tomatoes into small pieces and chop the garlic, then fry the garlic in the 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

When it starts to colour add the tomatoes, continue to cook until the tomatoes start to soften and breakdown, add salt to taste, about 1/2 teaspoon.

While the tomatoes are softening cook the beans in boiling water, they will only need about 5 minutes, then drain them and add to the tomato mixture.

The salad is quick and easy to pull together, slice the courgette with a peeler, combine with the arugula, add the olive oil and apple cider vinegar then top with the sesame seeds and some salt and pepper. When the roast courgettes are done they will look like this, a bit caramelised, the garlic will be soft and the thyme crunchy. I like to put everything on a platter for people to help themselves to.Totally yumshiuos, if thats a word.