How to maximize the zucchini taste

I often fry zucchini bits on medium heat for about 10-15 minutes untill they get very brown on all sides. This gives it a wonderful taste, but I wonder if it is possible to maximize and purify that taste.

I've tried cooking the zucchini in a pressure cooker with butter, a bit of water and baking soda, but because of the fact that zucchini contains a lot of water the result is a watery, cooked zucchini.

Do you have any idea on how to get the wonderful zucchini flavour I'm after? Should I try drying the zucchini in an oven before cooking it in the pressure cooker?

Thanks in advance

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Comments

tshewman

It may be easier to reduce and strain. Perhaps consider a pudding/gel via strain, blend while adding just enough juices to make the puree smooth. Pass through a fine sieve, add agar over low heat, chill, blend and pass through sieve again. Food for thought.

Samuel_68313

I feel that to answer this well we need to know exactly what you are after in terms of taste and application?

rasmus.haglund

I haven't thought of an application yet, but the taste I'm after is basically the same as you get when frying zucchini on medium heat in a pan with oil for a long time. The problem here is that only the outer layer of the zucchini is caramelized and my idea is to, in some way, make it caramelized all the way through (for example using a pressure cooker with butter and baking soda) and thus intensifying the taste.

So my original idea was to take the caramelized banana recipe and replacing the bananas for zucchini, but I didn't achieve the desired caramelized taste.

I could of course reduce the resulting zucchini paste as Todd suggested, but I think there's to much water in zucchini for it to get caramelized in that way.

Brendan_Lee_56950

So it sounds like you are really after the deeply caramelized flavor and texture is really just secondary? I think you could take zucchini and halve it to expose as much surface area as you can and broil/grill until it is nearly burnt, grind and dehydrate to make a roasted zucchini seasoning that you could then use to add back into the regular zucchini cooking application you enjoy. This way you would be able to keep the texture as well as add the extra flavor.

I did something similar with sweet corn. Passed it to give me a very nice corn puree and took the leftover skins from the kernels and fried them in butter to get them nice nutty and then dehydrated and ground them to use as a seasoning for a fresh sauteed corn pasta, it added so much flavor without having to cook the hell out of the fresh corn.

Matt_67991

I would use a mandoline to make thin long strips and fry that in batches, and if that isn't quite dry enough, try putting them in a low oven first. You could also cutting your zucchini up larger and just roasting them. That dries and caramelizes all at once.