Day 135: deliciously uplifting

I’ve been trying to make Nigella’s Double Courgette and Bean Salad, since it was first suggested to me by food writer Nicola Miller on Twitter, for about eight weeks now. But it seems yellow courgettes are somewhat of an elusive ingredient in my part of the UK. I’ve tried “high-end” supermarkets, greengrocers and farm shops. I even looked to order online and - although I would never only order 1kg of yellow courgettes, and nothing, in a single shop (carbon footprint and all that) - even that didn’t turn up many results. If only I’d come across this one last year when we grew our own on the allotment. I’d have been making it with each fresh pick!

I am fully aware that I could have just doubled the green courgettes (and will probably be required to do so should I want to make this salad over the winter, with imported courgettes), but, in my mind, it wouldn’t then be a ‘double courgette’ salad: it would be a courgette salad with double the quantity of courgettes. Not the same I think. Also, yellow courgettes are sweeter in my humble opinion.

Nope, my stubbornness refused to give in here. I planted the recipe to the back of my mind and waited patiently for the opportunity to pounce upon some yellow courgettes as soon as I saw them in a shop. And voila. Patience prevailed. At the Polski sklep on Saturday there were two random, rather large, yellow courgettes among the boxes of pickling cucumbers, apples, tomatoes, pears, horseradish roots and Chinese Leaf cabbages. It was meant to be.

Nigella’s Double Courgette and Bean Salad

I was adamant that I’d use yellow courgettes to qualify the ‘double’ component of the recipe - even I had to use a kind of summer squash, instead - but I could not bring myself to use broad beans. I am still haunted by the horror of school-dinner broad beans; those pale, leather-skinned, over-boiled, flour-textured, kidney-shaped objects nestled in with a bunch of other dolly-mixture-cut overcooked frozen veg. To keep the ‘double bean’ component, I subbed them with frozen edamame beans: I know I like these and didn’t want to risk using broad beans if I then ended up disliking the dish - and I hate picking through food to fish out the bits I don’t like. It slows me down and it’s tedious.

I will re-approach broad beans soon, I promise. But it could just be one of those things; like coined carrots. I just cannot bring myself to eat carrots cut into thick, orange coins. Call me spoilt. Call me ungrateful. Though I would, of course, eat them if they were prepared and served to me by someone else! Or it was all I had.

Flavour musings

This is, without question, one of my new favourite things to eat. It’s happiness. It’s sunshine. It’s deliciously uplifting. And it’s full of summery goodness. The sweetness of the roasted courgettes, the squeakiness of the green beans, the buttery-nuttiness of the edamame, the citrus scent of the lemon, and the grassy, aromatic freshness of the herbs: pure joy on the senses. And so worth the eight-week search for yellow courgettes,

You can find the recipe for this in Nigella Summer.