The Munchies Blog

One of my flatmates bought a big bag of courgettes (called zucchini in other parts of the world) the other day. I remembered that we’d once made really nice stuffed courgettes but I couldn’t find the recipe anywhere. It think the recipe below is close enough though.

This recipe takes a bit of time to prepare, but I think it’s well worth the effort. The amounts given were enough for 3 people for 1.5 meals.

Mince and Feta Stuffed Courgettes

• 8-9 smallish courgettes
• ca 300g beef mince
• 1 big onion
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• ca 3 handful rice (we used red rice, but brown or even plain long-grain rice should be fine)
• 200g feta
• 3 eggs
• ca 100-150ml milk
• ca 200g cheese (e.g. gouda or mild cheddar)

Boil the rice.

Pre-heat the oven to 180° C. Wash the courgettes, cut off the ends and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out most of the flesh, leaving a boat-shaped shell. Keep the flesh.

Chop the onion and garlic. Fry the onion, meat and garlic in a little bit of olive oil.

Cut the courgette flesh into small pieces and add to the meat. Fry for a few more minutes.

Cut the feta into very small pieces (or crumble with a fork). Grate the other cheese.

In a bowl, mix the meat mixture, drained rice, feta, an egg and some spices — we used salt, white pepper, smoked paprika and some rosemary. In a small bowl, whisk together the other two eggs, the milk and some more spices — in our case I think it was salt, white pepper, paprika and oregano.

Put the courgette halves into a shallow ovenproof dish, “open” side facing upwards. Spoon the meat/rice/feta-mixture into the courgette halves. Pour over the egg/milk-mixture so that some of it ends up in the dish itself and sprinkle the cheese over everything.

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 20-30 minutes. The temperature and times are for a conventional oven, you will have to adjust them for convection ovens. It’s done when the courgettes are soft enough to eat and the cheese has browned nicely.

I think next time we might use more rice and maybe also slightly more mince.