When it comes to food I usually veer away from cute. I was never into the whole cake pop thing, and to tell you the truth making cupcakes at home kind of scared me. I think it’s partly to do with my not feeling overly confident as a baker. Most ‘cute’ food comes on the sweet side, and I’m much more likely to find myself sweating over some complicated pilaf and just send Domenico out for a cake from the bakery.
But there is one dish that I make an exception for: stuffed vegetables. I love the entire process of hollowing out a zucchini, tomato or eggplant, and carefully stuffing them and reassembling them so they still look like what they started out as: intact, perfect little veggies. But filled with a delicious meal. Cute, right?
And for veggie cuteness you can’t get more precious than roly poly zucchini. I swear, I am not making up this name. The tennis ball sized green gourds are really called Roly Poly Zucchini. I first discovered them about 20 years ago, while pouring over seed catalogues to plant out garden. That was back when I still started most of our seedlings myself, on the terrace in Rome, carrying them up to our garden in Todi to plant out. I would order a pack each of about five different types of zucchini seeds, very proud of myself when I was the absolute only one in Umbria ( I’m guessing )to have such exotic gourds.
Eventually, thank goodness, my local nursery started offering more of a variety zucchini-wise, so I was able to buy seedlings straight from him. And now? 20 years on? Roly Poly are everywhere: at my farmers market, at the supermarket and – of course – on my table.
I first leaned to cook stuffed vegetables in Greece, where I lived one summer with my family. While everyone else was out at the beach, I would hang out in the kitchen learning how to cook Greek dishes. My favorite was the elaborate dolmades, which I learned did not just refer to stuffed grape leaves, but meant stuffed everything. Each vegetable would be carefully hollowed out and then stuffed with a mixture of rice, onions and tomatoes. I learned how to time the cooking so that each vegetable was added at the precise time to make sure they were cooked to perfection, didn’t fall apart and that every grain of rice was tender. A platter of these glistening vegetables laid out on a platter? Gorgeous. Like a Dutch still life.
These days I go for cute. Roly Poly zucchini were invented, I am sure, just for stuffing. Using a melon baller, the hollowing out work takes seconds. And the stuffing? I learned to wing it. Whatever goes in ends up tasting fantastic.
This past weekend it was ricotta cheese, some egg yolks left over from making pavlova, onions and a couple of hunks of walnut bread, cut up into cubes. Cooked in a simple tomato sauce it was pretty much a one dish meal. Filling, delicious and (do i really have to say it?) cute.
stuffed roly poly zucchini
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4
Ingredients
- 8 tennis ball sized Roly Poly zucchini
- 4 egg yolks ( or 2 whole eggs)
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1 cup crumbled day old bread (I used whole wheat walnut bread, which was fantastic)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion chopped (about a 1 cup)
- 6 fresh sage leaves, chopped
- 1 large can pelati tomatoes
- salt
Instructions
- Cut the top off of each zucchini, about a half inch down from the top.
- Using a melon baller, carefully scoop out each zucchini, being careful to leave at least a 1/4 inch of flesh on the sides.
- Lightly salt the insides of the zucchini, and turn them over to drain on a paper towel.
- Roughly cut up half of the zucchini flesh, and toss the rest (or freeze and use in your next batch of minestrone)
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a pan with sides high enough to hold the zucchini standing upright with their lids. Add the 1/2 the onions, sage, 1/2 tsp of salt and let soften. Add the chopped zucchini flesh and cook until it done and has give up all of its water. This will take about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Put the onion zucchini mixture in a mixing bowl and let cool.
- In the meantime put another tablespoon of olive oil into the same pan and add the rest of the onions and 1/2 tsp of salt. Let cook until the onions have wilted, and then add the tomatoes and their liquid. Let this cook at medium heat for about 15 minutes.
- Now that the onions and zucchini mixture has cooled, add the ricotta, egg yolks, crumbled bread, last tablespoon of olive oil. Mix well.
- Using a paper towel, pat the insides of the zucchini dry.
- Using a spoon, stuff the zucchini, distributing the stuffing between them.
- Top each zucchini with a lid, and place in the pan with the tomato sauce. Using a spoon, ladle some of the sauce on top of each zucchini. If the sauce seems too thick, add a bit of water. Cover and cook till done, checking and basting every so often
- The zucchini should take about 45 minutes to cook. Server warm or at room temperature.
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I’m totally with you on this one! Every time I see them at the market I ooh and aah over how adorable they are (and incredibly delicious to boot)
Oh my! If it weren’t for my husband the carnivore, I would eat something like this every night for dinner. Maybe he will go on a business trip soon…..
Of course you could always add some crumbled sausage and I’m sure it would be delicious! Just add it at the beginning, when cooking the onions.
Hi
I am really enjoying all of your posts and the pictures are lovely… this recipe for the Zucchini (Roly Poly with red sauce) – I make something very similar – LOVE the idea of whole wheat walnut bread – so going to use that next time…
the other thing I noticed is no garlic…
Once these lovely Roly Poly Zucchini are available here – I will make these!! Right now we are just getting the scapes in… a bit behind you.
Anne
Very close observation: no garlic indeed. Actually, I probably would have used it if I had had some. But I didn’t and it turned out very delicate tasting. Often, I automatically use garlic, without thinking twice about it. But lately I’ve been seeing how things turn out without it.
These look deliciously cute! I need to find them.
This is something I wait for all summer, the round zucchini from our farmer’s market! That and small eggplants stuffed, love them and they are tasty served at room temp as well as warm…great for the summer! So cute!! I have been pouring over my summer veg. recipes in anticipation! Sometimes I hollow our the long zucchini and do the same thing….hurry up zucchini! Oh, and let’s not forget the blossoms WOW does all this scream summer or what?
I never really knew what to do with these – what a great idea to stuff them! And a beautiful presentation – p.s. I love the sausage idea…
Perhaps its too late to comment on your heart little cucusati…they are so beautiful. How is it that food can cause us to remember a faint childhood memory? Your tiny eight ball zuchinni ( as they are called here) brought me back to my Nana, who grew in our garden long green cucusa. The vines came right out of a fairy tail and she promised that we would stuff these long green snakes when they grew just right size. “Notta to bigga and notta to small.” They were stuffed with the same simple ingrdients you described. We also picked the tips of the vines to saute’ in olive oil and finally left the biggest snakes to dry for the next years seeds.
That short little woman has been gone for decades but you, you brought me back to the little boy who learned to stuff the long green cucusi from his Nana over 50 years ago.
How do I thank you for retrieving such sweet memories ?
Gratzi,
Randy DeFrancesco
I’ve always wanted to grow those long green Sicilian zucchini. For some reason I never see the seedlings for sale here. Next year I’ll have to order the seeds ahead of time and start my own. Funny enough, these days the tips of the vines – called tenerumi – are showing up more often in the markets in Rome.