Cooking web notes

Zucchini and Sautéing 101

Do you know sautéingmeans “jumping” in French?   It’s kind of like frying, only different.  It requires a heavy bottomed skillet, foodthat is cut the same small size and oil that likes really high heat.  Frying means quite a lot of oil, larger fooditems such as chicken parts and lower heat allowing the food to cook longer fordoneness. 

The question I havewith sautéing is:  do I heat the panfirst and then add the oil or do I add the oil to a cold skillet and heat themboth at the same time?  Usually I add theoil to a hot skillet but I’m not sure if this is the correct procedure toensure that very little fat is absorbed by the food.  What do you think ~ how do you do it?

No matter whichmethod, I really like sautéed veggies and since summer is about over for thisyear, I had to squeeze in one more dish that’s filled with fresh zucchini, bellpeppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach.

By the way, zucchini, a member of the plant species, cucurbita pepo, wasintroduced into American culture by Italy. The Italians developed what we nowcall zucchini through a freak of nature – a chance mutation of one of its squashbrethren. The Italian immigrants brought the seeds with them to California inthe 1920’s when later; a small southern California seed company begandistributing the seeds. It took a while to catch on ~ all that zucchini you seeat your farmer’s markets and the ones your neighbor unloads on you were barelyrecognized here in the United States just 50 years ago.  Now look how prolific it is, being served asa vegetable dish, bread, dessert or as a smoothie to sip on!

This is about as easyas it gets for the veggies I bought at our farmer’s market Saturday morning andquick too.  It combines them all withsome onion, garlic, chicken broth and crushed red pepper for a little heat.  With all the vibrant colors, it looks asappealing as it tastes!  I hope you likeit!

Sautéed Zucchini Mix

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large white onion, chopped

3 garlic heads, minced

3 zucchini, chopped into bite-size chunks

1 bell pepper, diced

8 ounces mushrooms, diced

3 tomatoes, diced

9 ounce bag spinach

½ cup chicken broth, low sodium

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper

Salt and pepper, to taste

Parmesan cheese, shaved

Method:

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are cooked.

Add zucchini, peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes.

Cook until the vegetables soften, about 4 minutes.

Add spinach and cook until it wilts.

Pour broth over all.

Add red pepper and salt and pepper.

Cook until all is heated through. 

Transfer to a serving dish.

Serve along with shaved Parmesan.

It’s a delicious colorful side dish!

Be sure to visit my friend, Linda’s blog @My Kind of Cooking for great tips, recipes.  

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12, 2011 at 6:54 AM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.