Have you ever tasted these crispy fried zucchini thin slices in a Greek tavern? They are the absolute meze to ouzo or wine and directly associated with sun, sea and summer.
Have you then ever tired to play Greek tavern owner at home, carefully preparing your zucchini slices to get soggy and sloppy whatevers that have nothing in common with the delicacy you ate at the tavern?
It is exactly these multiple big failures that had me avoid fried zucchini, slices ro sticks, like the devil avoids the cross.
Until …recently! I got some zucchini from a friend’s garden and I thought “Girl, it’ your time!”
I searched in the Greek internet for crispy fried zucchini and I got the perfect recipe with the magic trick: dive the zucchini slices in salty water!
This made the difference – the huge difference – that when I wanted to try only one from the first batch… I ended up eating all of them.
Here is the recipe
Crispy fried zucchini (with flour)
Ingredients
1-2 relatively large zucchini (about half a kilo in total)
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 cups of water
1 teaspoon of salt for the water
½ teaspoon salt for the zucchini
Around 400ml or 500ml Olive oil for frying (alternatively any seed oil but olive oil is the best for zucchini1)
Procedure
Cut the zucchini into round slices a little more than 1/2 cm thick or into oblong (lengthwise) or sticks.
Sprinkle them with ½ teaspoon salt and let them ….sweat. (about 10-15 minutes)
In a plate, mix the flour with the baking powder.
Put the water in a deep bowl and dissolve 1 teaspoon of salt.
Put enough olive oil in a pot, frying pan or deep pan and heat it.
Take enough zucchini slices, dip them in the salt water and after shaking off the excess water (or remove it with a slotted spoon), dip them in the flour-baking powder mixture and make sure they’re all good covered with it.
*Briefly dip the slices again in the salt water and place them in the frying pan.
Flip them over once.
Take them out when golden brown and place the on kitchen paper for a few minutes.
You serve them warm withe tzatziki or humus dip or just plain with lemon wedges.
Extravaganza: grate a hard, yellow, a bit spicy Greek cheese over the zucchinis. But if you add feta they maybe turn soggy as feta contains water.
Extra tips:
if you have self-rising flour skip the baking powder
* I must confess I saw the 2nd time “dip in the salt water” while I was translating the recipe for KTG (LOL) It means I did it only once when I fried them. It worked too. 🙂
The original recipe you find in CretanGastronomy in Greek. Vaggelio Kssapaki who posted it also noted that she had seen it in a magazine while waiting at a doctor’s office.
Thank you for sharing! I was thinking about this food just this weekend. Does this work for aubergine too? I tried to make it once, and it was a huge failure. I didn’t know all this information, I thought they were just fried in oil.
I am so much gonna try this out this summer!!
just try it with aubergines and tell us if it worked too
Love fried zucchini (and kolokitokeftedes!), will try this receipe asap!
It is just that, to get them crispy…..
Often try to play “greek taverna” here at home. Love greek looking!
Thanks KTG!
PS: should of course be greek cooking….
Using a mandolin (kitchen not musical) to slice the courgettes is very fast and gives exactly the right thickness every slice but make sure you use the little plastic spikes to hold it, unless you like deep fried finger ends.
I am surprised by the second dip in the salt water after flouring? I would have thought that would just wash the flour off? Since you didn’t do it and your method worked I think I would stick to how you did it.
mandolin will cut them extraordinary thin.
I find that is one of the key factors in making sure they are crispy.
they will be flour and not zucchini. give us a feedback, for sure.
Nice. Will give this a try. It sounds logical to me to do dip the courgette slices only once in the salted water. I like them long-wise when they curl up a bit.
Any tips for zucchini balls? You need to squeeze the liquid out but how much flour do you need and what can you put in the mix?
no idea about zucchini-balls. but: for balls you use shredded zucchini and squeeze like cucumber for tzatziki. flour 9so much that the balls do not break apart), egg, zucchini, salt, pepper, mint.also shredded cheese?
Yes, not much flower indeed. All other ingredients you mentioned we added, included cheese and mint. Instead of mint we tried also dille.
Yummy!