Grilled courgettes with warm yoghurt and saffron butter
Yotam Ottolenghi has a new cookbook: Test Kitchen – Shelf Love. The dishes in Shelf Love contain all the flavour and originality we expect from Ottolenghi, while offering more flexibility to make them your own, using what we already have in our kitchen cupboards. With these grilled courgettes with warm yoghurt and saffron butter, you can achieve the ‘Ottolenghi wow factor’ in no time.
This recipe is inspired by kousa b’laban, a Levantine dish of stuffed baby courgettes cooked in yoghurt. In this simple version, the yoghurt sauce and grilled courgettes are prepared separately, then served with a quickly made saffron butter to drizzle over them.
Beware of splitting
It’s quite an art to cook yoghurt without it splitting; it works very well if you add a stabiliser, such as cornflour or egg yolk, but you can also heat it over low heat while stirring and avoid bringing it to the boil. The result is a silky-smooth and tangy sauce, delicious with courgettes but also with other grilled vegetables, fatty meat or even as a pasta sauce.
How to make the grilled courgettes with warm yoghurt and saffron butter
- Preheat the oven grill to a high setting.
- Put the butter and saffron in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, set the pan aside so the saffron can infuse.
- Place the courgettes on a baking tray lined with baking paper and toss them with 2 tablespoons of oil, 1/3 teaspoon of salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper. Place them cut-side up and grill for 15–20 minutes, until nicely charred and tender.
- Make the sauce during the last 10 minutes of grilling. In a large bowl, whisk the cornflour with 3 tablespoons of water until smooth, then add the yoghurt, garlic, dried mint, the remaining ½ tablespoon of oil and ½ teaspoon of salt. Whisk everything together, pour it into a large non-stick sauté pan and place it over medium heat. Heat the sauce, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes until slightly thickened and thoroughly warm. Do not let the sauce boil, or it will split.
- Pour the warm yoghurt sauce into a dish with raised sides and place the courgettes in it, grilled side up. Spoon the saffron butter over them and sprinkle with the coriander seeds and mint leaves. Squeeze the juice of the lemon half over them and serve immediately.
Title: Shelf Love
Author: Yotam Ottolenghi
Price: €24,99
Publisher: Fontaine uitgevers
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