Annotations: Week 2

Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini. When the cucumbers are a-plenty, the zucchinis usually follow suit. Whether you grow or not, you might have family, friends, neighbours, or colleagues who unload their abundance (I won’t call it a burden) onto you. While the first zucchini inspires a sense of giddiness and joy, a wealth can easily feel overwhelming. 

Planting more than a couple plants at the allotment is a rookie mistake that we seem to make every year. We have learned the hard way that one courgette can grow to a mammoth size in the span of a week if forgotten. Now we have to suffer the consequences, zucchini at every meal, at least one way.

For those suffering from zucchini excess, I am sharing my favourite zucchini-based recipe this week.

Welcome to week 2 of Annotations, and thank you for reading along. I’d love to hear from you at hello@alisalarsen.se.

With love,

Alisa

Currently cooking 

One May morning a few years ago, we travelled to the rocky, wind-swept island of Tinos, Greece, and instantly fell in love with it. Fragrant clouds of gorse, flowering thyme, and wild fennel covered the landscape, with white-chalked dove cots dotting its expanse. Capers grew everywhere, ready to be picked and salted. The food reflected the season’s abundance of wild foods and the first artichokes and zucchinis.  

My friend Alex’s (hey Alex!) list brought us to the taverna Kounaria, over the hills, down a valley and up, up, up. As the sun went down, the feral cats and the mosquitos came out to play.

An extraordinary meal ensued—of little moon-shaped pies filled with homemade cheese and sweet pumpkin, caper flower salad with a lethal amount of garlic (delicious!), lemon-tinged goat stew, and fatty yoghurt with quince jam, wolfed down with enthusiasm, while the chef and her daughter chatted along. Cold beers and raki were poured. We were the only guests, being off season, which provided plenty of time to enquire about cooking methods and recipes. 

Best of it all, all though a variation of the dish appears on almost every Greek menu, were the kolokithokeftedes, zucchini fritters. 

The simple genius of Kounaria’s kolokithokeftedes is the use of semi-dried tomatoes and the wild fennel that grows liberally around the island. I find it most delectable, but have replaced it with mint or basil with great success. 

Zucchini fritters from Tinos

10-12 cherry tomatoes

600 g of zucchini

¼ cup flour

¼ cup breadcrumbs

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

2 spring onions, finely chopped

100 g of feta, crumbed

Wild fennel fronds, mint or basil, coarsely chopped or torn

Salt

Neutral oil fit for frying, I use sunflower

Set the oven to 175 degrees. Halve the cherry tomatoes and transfer to an oven-proof pan. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Bake for 25-30 minutes, till wrinkly and sweet.

Coarsely grate the zucchini. Transfer to a colander and sprinkle with a couple pinches of salt. Mix and let stand for 20-30 minutes. 

Squeeze the liquid out of the zucchini - try to get as much as possible out of it, as excessive liquid waters out the batter and makes it hard for the fritters to hold their shape. 

Mix the zucchini, flour, breadcrumbs, baking powder, egg, spring onions, feta, and a pinch of salt - I like to do this with my hands to get a sense of the texture. It should feel like a cohesive batter, not too runny. Add the tomatoes and carefully turn into the batter. 

Heat 1-2 cm worth of neutral oil to 185 degrees in a frying pan or similar. Test fry a fritter to get a sense of how quickly it browns. Adjust the temperature accordingly - the outer part should be deep golden brown, while the inside is pillowy with no trace of raw batter. 

Sprinkle with salt. Serve on its own, or (apologies for the blasphemy) with a dollop of aioli.

Currently listening

Lately, I am mostly kicking back with Gigi Masin’s classic Wind (1986), an extraordinary piece of ambient electronic music that feels like a cooling dip into the ocean. 

Soft late summer evenings are spent in the kitchen, frying things, and dancing to lighter, brighter sounds. Strictly disco, soul and funk.

Annotations: Week 2

Currently reading

Barbara Pym, as recommended by Hanya Yanagihara (start with Some Tame Gazelle or Quartet in Autumn), Natalia Ginzburg’s Family and Borghesia with its depictions of family and social life, transition and belonging in 70s Rome and beyond, and Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, a wild dystopian mystery ride playing out in an alternate America, fiction posing as the biography of the artist and musician X, as written by her wife.

Perusing upcoming releases and eagerly anticipating A Garden Manifesto, edited by Olivia Laing and Richard Porter with contributions by an extraordinary roster of writers and thinkers, Lucia Odoom’s novel Cosmos and Thom Eagle’s The Philosophy of Pickles and Fermented Foods.

London!

Many, many inquiries about where to eat and drink and look for books in London in my DMs these days. For those who read Swedish or another Scandinavian language, I wrote a whole book on the matter. For the rest, here is a list of some favourites from a few weeks ago.

Start the day at Anna Higham’s brilliant bakery Quince. Her approach to seasonal fruit and flavours blows my mind, as readers of her cookbook The Last Bite will know. Last time I went, I got a hand pie filled with red gooseberries—it was tart, sensuous, delightful. 

Have a look at books at Skoob Books or Oxfam Bookstore (both second hand with a great selection), Judd Books (used and bargain books) or London Review Bookshop, all within walking distance of each other, and even better….

…close to Café Deco for lunch. To me, there’s no better place to start a visit to London. The food is simple and always delicious, the staff really lovely, and the wine list compact, but exciting and ever-changing. I have had some of my best meals in London here. If you’re dining alone, I recommend sitting at the window or outside, watching the crowds drift by.

Great pubs within an arm's reach and a bit are among others The Duke in Bloomsbury, where you can get a bit of peace and quiet in the early afternoon, while the barmaid plays the Ronettes. Another favourite is the independent pub the Sutton Arms in Farringdon, with an excellent selection of craft beers from England and beyond, and a selection of pies for when the hunger kicks in again.

Another way of going about it all together is going for tea and a Milanese sandwich at Scotti’s Snack Bar or the cottoletta at Italia Uno. Bring a book, enjoy the place and the people.

Some wine at Hector’s, always, or Yuki Bar, a recent addition that serves the coldest, neatest, most dangerous martini, and really good, refined Japanese home cooking. A fantastic list of wine and great records playing all night long.  

Pick up a bottle of wine at either of those (God bless corkage!), and head for mangal at Umut 2000 (bring cash! Last time we went looking for an ATM for miles, sans success) or Mangal 1 (it takes card)—the jury is out on which one is best, and everyone prefers either or. Grilled chicken hearts, livers, quails, adana, onion salad, ezme, are some of my regular orders. Bring friends.

A late night pint of Guinness at the Auld Shillelagh in Stoke Newington, or the simple choice of pale ale or bitter on cask at Macintosh Ales, if it is open.

If you find yourself on the other side of town, as I often do, there’s no place like 40 Maltby St, the finest hospitality and food around.

That’s all for now. See you next week for a chat about greens, and a recipe for a great way to eat them—in Greek hortopita.