Wednesday 26 January 2011

qarabali zucchini

I was sent some seeds of a Maltese zucchini called qarabali.  I've never grown zucchini before, but with free seed I thought I'd give it a shot.  On Friday it made its first female flower, which I hand fertilized with a male flower, and by Sunday this was here to greet me!
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/zucchinijan.JPG
By Wednesday it was time to pick it.  Pretty fast turnaround.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/zucchini1.JPG
As you can see, qarabali is a round zucchini made for stuffing.  So that's what I did!  After reading a few recipes for inspiration I had a go without a recipe.  Shallots, pumpkin, the insides of the zucchini and some raisins along with couscous and Moroccan spices.  Not all the stuffing fit so I ate the rest as a side dish.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/zucchini2.JPG
It was pretty tasty if I do say so myself.  The zucchini itself is very mild, almost like a cucumber, so it's better with the stuffing.  Now if I'm lucky, I'll have a massive glut of them before long, zucchini is notorious for either never setting fruit or setting more than you could possibly eat.

1 comments:

Gorgeous George said...

Yum, I love qarabali!! There are two ways to cook it which are traditional Maltese cuisine. One is to chop it up and fry it in a lot of olive oil with some bacon and onion. The other recipe is to stuff it with pork and veal mince among other things. I'll be posting a recipe for the latter on my blog www.5sensescooking.blogspot.com tonight! After reading this, I might try my hand at growing some qarabali myself.