Has anyone actually made that courgette/spaghetti thing Stanley Tucci is always

[SirTarquin]

banging on about and featured in his Italian series? Is it worth it? Worth the fuss? Is it as good as he says?

It's the one that involves deep frying courgettes and leaving them overnight.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/kitchen-notes/the-secrets-of-stanley-tuccis-zucchini-spaghetti

I wonder if you really need to rest the courgettes in advance or if that's just what they do in the restaurant to get ahead for service.

Anyway I'm making this tonight, since I got 4 courgettes in the veg box and I only have time to rest the courgettes a few hours this afternoon. We'll see how it goes!

(I might throw in some wild garlic with the basil. Controversy!)

We make it lots.. but always with garlic a mix of pecorino and parmesan and just shallow fry the garlic in olive oil.. add the cooked spaghetti ..
but at the end we stir in a blob of creme fraiche.. (Sorry Stanley , but I think he'd approve if he tried it ) 😋One of our favourite dinners

I find bought courgettes have an, er, elusive flavour, home grown are a bit better...
I slice and sauté them in olive oil, adding chopped garlic, chili, lemon juice and grated parmesan for the last minute or so. I also make zucchini agrodolce, sliced and fried in olive oil and finished with anchovies, raisins and wine vinegar. (Gives them a bit more flavour - they need all the help they can get, IMO. )
DH grows yellow as well as green ones, yellow ones being slightly firmer. They stand up to being sliced lengthwise and griddled until stripey then marinated in oil and lemon juice as a side dish.
When you grow courgettes you end up with barrow loads if you're not careful... this summer I will definitely try the spaghetti alla Nerano recipe. I'm always desperate to find new ways of using up the little buggers, especially when you find one hiding under a leaf and it's now a prize-winning marrow.

wonder if you really need to rest the courgettes in advance or if that's just what they do in the restaurant to get ahead for service.

@Xiaoxiong - no the resting it is an essential part of the dish becaues the courgettes soften post frying. The recipes say they need to be rested for at least 2 hours.

Ok I promise I will rest them for 4.5 hours exactly as we'll eat at 7pm

I'm finding it's taking a good 20 mins to get them fried to the point of burnt. Probably would be faster if I was using a proper fryer rather than a pot with a 3 inches of oil!

I'm finding it's taking a good 20 mins to get them fried to the point of burnt. Probably would be faster if I was using a proper fryer rather than a pot with a 3 inches of oil!

Which recipe are you using?

They are supposed to be golden brown not burnt - althought something I read said some chefs do get them a bit more towards burnt for flavour.

I was using a deep fat fryer at 175 degrees. It was taking about 5 mins or so in batches of one courgette at a time.

I'm so glad you are doing this too - we can compare notes. I'm expecting it to be a great disappointment to be honest because of how much I've heard about how nice it is!!

I'm using the New Yorker recipe you linked above - it says to fry until golden or even slightly burnt. They're resting in their bowl now so I'll take a photo so you can see how golden I'm talking...

Pic attached of golden depth of colour.

Warning - they are bloody delicious so make more than you think you need as some will disappear before any pasta is made...

It was very good good but not yet life changing - though it was actually astonishing was how just a few ingredients can be so transformed by a cooking technique (cf Ottolenghi and the ingredient list that goes on for 2 pages)

I think it has great potential though so I am going to try again and tweak a few things:

More courgettes (I did 4 for 3 people and it wasn't quite enough)
Slice courgettes a little thicker
Rest overnight in the fridge
More basil (or maybe a tiny bit of pesto)
Grate cheese more finely

Those courgettes look amazing! I'd happily eat those on their own or as a side without the pasta tbh

REPORTING BACK: Spaghetti alla nerano done

My report for this evening cooking. This was delicious and worth the overnight frying!

So I used the recipe above slightly informed by this one (at the bottom of the page) https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/stanley-tucci-searching-for-italy-recipes/index.html . I'd done a lot of reading around it and looked at other recipes and watched the section on the programme - because it looked such a faff and I wasn't sure whether to bother.

I didn't use any garlic because in the TV programme they were saying when they cooked it for friends they always thought it had garlic in it but the flavour just came from the courgettes/zucchini - so I was interested to try that.

My feedback is

• I think deep fat frying the courgettes is essential and really makes the dish because the cooking of the courgettes is key plus the overnight softening.
• I cooked mine so they looked like the picture from @Xiaoxiong above - mostly gold but with a bit of toasty -slightly brown - slightly hint of a burn.
• I'd read that the quality of the cheese is important so I had bought some very good quality age parmesan and did half/half with provalone. I would like to try it with provalone de monaco (which is the regions local cheese) but its difficult to get here and expensive.

-the programme said to add a knob of butter - I forgot because I was focussed on the sauce consistency as the courgettes were cooking - it didn't actually need it because it was delicious as it was but I can see it would make the sauce more silky -I'd read not to oversalt the pasta water because the cheese is salty so I abided by this -fresh basil on top just perfects it

A total success and worth the pre-frying faff. I see what the fuss is about. I'm glad I tried it and would recommend it but I think you need to take it seriously and not skimp on the stages as per the recipe - so no shallow frying, do let the courgettes rest overnight, and get the best quality cheese you can afford.

forgot to say - that the garlic wasn't missed. the flavour was fabulous as it was without garlic.

I'm actually a bit annoyed it was worth the faff op as now I HAVE to make it 😂😩

Yes it's delicious, but I don't deep fry the courgettes and I think the secret is cooking them the day before and don't miss the basil.

Just to clarify I fry the courgette just not in a deep fryer

@Xiaoxiong - I hadn't seen your post when I'd posted mine. I don't know but my guess is that if you leave them overnight they soften more

I agree with you that it is amazing how so few ingredients can be made so delicious. I didn't even put garlic in mine.

@namelessfornow
I wanted to try it too! But I'm the only one in house who will eat courgettes so thought it'd be a bit of faff for me to make just 1 serving.

Seriously, this is a great way to disguise vegetables - I think you could easily smuggle it past non-courgette eaters. Iyou couldn't tell they were courgettes in the dish. Honestly, they break down so much in the cooking and the taste is nothing like courgettes. I don't think anyone other than an expert chef or someone who'd had it before & knew would identify courgettes in it.

Yes. Well worth the effort and I like that you can start it the night before - feels like a win when it comes to bringing it together the night after. Good option for veggie guests, feels special.