For the Tastiest Zucchini, Fry it in Olive Oil (Zucchini alla Scapece) | Kenji’s Cooking Show

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So today I am making uh zucchini alask. If you’ve never liked zucchini, um I would suggest trying it like this. You know, I find zucchini to be very sort of bland, mushy vegetable, but when you deep fry in olive oil and you season it right, um it can be really, really flavorful. Um so I’ll talk a little bit more about it while I’m cooking. Um but uh let’s get to the zucchini. This is a southern Italian uh preparation. Very very simple. Um, if you saw my video the other day where I made um, pasta alano, which is a a zucchini pasta dish, um, this one starts really similarly. Um, so I’m going to start by heating up some uh, extravirgin olive oil. This is not my like fanciest extra-virgin olive oil, but it’s the kind of extravirgin olive oil that I want to fry in. Um, you know, a lot of people would tell you not to fry in extravirgin olive oil because it loses its flavor. Um, and while it’s true that it does lose some amount of flavor, you know, there are some sort of volatile compounds that come out. And so if you can if you can smell it and it smells really good, that means that the, you know, whatever is going into your nose is no longer in the oil. Um, so some of the more delicate aromomas will kind of cook off as you heat olive oil to frying temperatures. However, what’s left in there is still a lot more flavorful than um another type of uh neutral oil. Um, so the idea here is that, you know, as you’re sort of frying the zucchini, some of the moisture content of the zucchini is going to evaporate off uh and will be replaced um by olive oil. And so you get this sort of really rich, creamy, delicious thing um with some amount of sort of browning and sweetness, some nuttiness to it. Um and then it’s just really really simply seasoned with um some fresh extravirgin olive olive oil, some um vinegar, uh mint and garlic. Um all right, so I am cooking in uh the our place titanium pro um always pan. Uh it looks like Hexclad, but it’s not. Um the you know Hexclad is this pan where you have um this sort of stainless steel raised pattern. Uh, and then within each one of those sort of hexagonal wells, there’s um a non-stick coating. Um, the problem is that non-stick coatings are not heat proof. So, you can’t heat them up to um sort of high searing temperatures or frying temperatures like this because those non-stick coatings will start to um well turn into dangerous vapors. Um uh the well, the other problem is also that the non-stick coating will kind of eventually debond itself from the metal and uh you’ll end up with a pan that has no more non-stick properties. This pan is not that. This pan is uh titanium. Uh so it’s seasoned titanium. So those wells are actually just part of the metal itself. Um it’s a triple layer pan. So there’s stainless steel on the outside uh that acts sort of as like your heat your heat battery, you know, the thing that stores a lot of heat. Um there is a layer of aluminum in the center which uh distributes that heat evenly so you get a really nice even heat all around. Um and then the top layer is titanium um with a bit of a raised stainless steel pattern that helps keep it even uh sort of more non-stick. What I love about it is that it’s it is non-stick. Um, but you can also heat it up uh hot enough to sear in. You know, you can sear a steak, you can sear chicken breast, you can fry zucchini until it turns nice and golden brown. Um, and it’s perfectly safe to use with metal utensils. You can’t really scratch it. Um, so anyway, we’re looking for uh this zucchini. We want some pretty, you know, pretty high heat here. We want the oil hot enough that the zucchini um kind of immediately starts to sizzle like that. Um, and what we’re looking for is a nice sort of deep golden brown. And then we’ll flip it over uh and do that second side. I cut the zucchini um about a/ inch thick, maybe a third of an inch thick. Um, you can go a little bit thinner if you want. Um, you know, sort of the the thinner you go, uh, the more the zucchini is going to kind of break down. Um, and so sometimes when I make this, I don’t, you know, I kind of like that the zucchini turns almost um soft and creamy. Um, but other times I want it to retain a little bit more um of a bite in the center. So, uh, in this case, it’s going to have a little bit more of a bite. All right. So, that’s what we’re looking for. It’s a nice sort of blistery brown surface. We’re essentially, you know, deep frying here. You know, this is just a regular old zucchini from the supermarket. Um, if you can get your hands on them, sometimes you can find them like at farmers markets or specialty markets. Uh you can get these Roman zucchinis which are the kind of pale green uh striped zucchinis. Um and those typically have a lower water content um and a more intense flavor. Um so they will they will not only brown a little bit better, but they’ll also sort of taste um a little sort of sweeter and a little strongly nuttier. But it’s going to be perfectly delicious with any kind of zucchini you use. This dish is um is really great for making a head. Um you know in in southern Italy you’ll find it you can find it served w hot, you can find it served warm um or you can find it served at room temperature. So you know you can make this dish um early on in your meal prep um or earlier in the day uh and then just sort of let it sit and marinate and serve it at room temperature um at dinner, you know, while you’re while you’re prepping your other stuff. So you don’t really it takes care of like a side dish without really having to worry about it. Um all right, so we’re going to let this get brown. on both sides. When I when I am planning on draining fried foods, um you know, you could you can put it on a rack. Uh but a paper towel is actually much more effective. You know, what happens when you put fried foods on a rack is that some of the oil drips off. Um but because of surface tension, a lot of it will end up sort of sticking um to the zucchini or whatever it is you’re frying. Whereas when you use a paper towel, it will sort of wick away um the excess oil. So you actually end up with uh less oil on the surface of the food. All that said, you know, we are deep frying in olive oil. So that oil is all really flavorful. So um and it’s uh you know, if you care about health, I think it’s I think they say it’s the good kind of fat. Um so you don’t really, you know, I don’t worry too much about how much oil is left on those zucchini slices. That sort of oil saturation is kind of part of the part of the dish here. The only thing you want, you know, you want to watch for is you want to sort of maintain that oil temperature so that it is nicely sort of bubbling the whole time you cook. Um, but you don’t want it to start getting to the point where it’s smoking. So, it’s a little bit hot right now, but because I’m putting the zucchini right in, that oil temperature should should drop down. Um, but if you see it sort of start to Oh, my building is uh my building is under now under new management and they are retesting all of the fire alarms. Uh, so this this is a test of the um emergency broadcast testing system. Um, which will hopefully not last that long. All right, but I’m going to be doing uh the zucchini exactly the same way I did the first. Um, so I’ll just come back when that’s all done and hopefully the alarm will have stopped by then. Um, all right. So I’ll see you in a few minutes. All right, so I’ve flipped these. I’ve got both sides nice and golden brown. Um, so now we’ll just get them out onto the uh onto our paper towels there. And again, you can see like I’m just like going straight in with a with a metal fish spatula. Um, you don’t really have to worry at all about the surface because that stainless steel protects it. It’s also got a lifetime warranty. So, um, well, I guess it’s an indication of the confidence we have in the pan. Um, this isn’t a sponsorship, by the way. This is a full partnership. So, um I’ve been working with the team there, um with their designers and uh their chefs and their uh scientists to um help develop this pan. All right, so at this point, we’re going to season. Got some pepper. Get some salt. Zucchini is a pretty sort of bland vegetable, so I find that it can take a fair amount of salt and a little pinch of MSG. Optional if if you don’t want to use MSG. Um, and then we’ll get this into a bowl here. [Music] I’m going to take a couple cloves of garlic. Um, the garlic part I like to put in while that eggplant is still sort of nice and hot. Um, because we’re not going to cook the garlic. You could, you know, sauté it a little bit if you’d like, but um, I instead like to get it in while the egg while the zucchini is still nice and hot. Did I say eggplant before? um while the zucchini is nice and hot. So that um that heat that you know that that um residual heat from the frying actually will sort of soften uh the flavor of the garlic a little bit. All right, garlic in. And then we’ll go in with some some mint. I’m just throwing these I keep them stored in water. So I’m just kind of throwing them slapping them down to get some of that excess water off. Doesn’t need to be perfectly dry for this though. And we’ll just kind of hand tear this. And this is basically the whole dish. Um it’s really really simple. The flavors are also very simple, but you know, they just kind of go go really well together. Um this is one of those cases where you want really, you know, your when we finish this, we want uh our best um extra virgin olive oil. Um and for frying, you want a decent one also. Okay. So, we’re going to just toss this all together. Let a little splash of vinegar. You can use whatever vinegar you like. Um, red wine, white wine, but just a little splash to season it. Let me get my fancy olive oil bowl for it. [Music] You can do it on a bowl. You can also do it sort of wide on a plate. You know, plate it up however whatever whatever strikes your fancy [Music] or whatever strikes your casual if you’re if you’re not feeling fancy. Oh jeez, they really don’t want me. uh talking to you today. I guess I guess it’s a good thing they’re testing the fire alarms. But all right, there we go. One last little drizzle of olive oil. And that is the dish. Let me taste a little. If you’ve never, you know, if you’ve never liked eggplant, um, eggplant, if you’ve never liked zucchini, um, I would suggest trying it like this. You know, I find zucchini to be very sort of bland, mushy vegetable, but when you deep fried in olive oil and you season it right, um, it can be really, really flavorful. All right, zucchini cap, guys, gals. N see you later.