When, at the beginning of summer, zucchini are just beginning to appear on the beds, it seems that there is nothing tastier than vegetable slices fried in flour or batter, seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic. But gradually there are more and more of them, and it gets hotter and hotter outside. Summer is already in full swing, sometimes there is nowhere to go from the zucchini, but there is also no desire to spend many hours at a hot stove at such a time. And in this situation, the recipe for cooking zucchini in the oven will come in handy, which for its simplicity was called even among the people lazy zucchini caviar.
Indeed, cooking squash roe in the oven will require a minimum of your presence in the kitchen. But the dish that you get as a result will captivate you with its tenderness, aroma of baked vegetables and impeccable taste.
Lazy squash caviar
This recipe makes caviar so easy that it can be cooked almost every day if there are enough vegetables. To do this, you just need to bake everything in the oven. True, this can be done in different ways. Listed below are the ingredients required to make caviar from three medium-sized courgettes.
- 2 medium carrots;
- 2 medium bell peppers;
- 1 decent sized onion;
- 2 large tomatoes;
- 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil
- Salt;
- Ground black pepper.
To prepare squash caviar according to this recipe, use a baking sleeve.
It is a package made of a special heat-resistant film that can withstand high temperatures up to + 220 ° C and even higher. The holes are on both sides, which is why it is called a sleeve, and it is tied at both ends with a special ribbon made of the same material.
Dishes that are cooked using such a sleeve acquire the taste of baked and steamed products at the same time. During cooking, vegetables are saturated with secreted juices and seasonings and acquire a bright and rich taste.
Squash caviar in the sleeve is prepared as follows. All vegetables are thoroughly washed, dried and peeled, if necessary, from the skin, seeds or tails. Then they must be cut into pieces of any shape and size. It is enough to cut the tomatoes into four parts, the other vegetables are cut as it is convenient for you.
After cutting, the vegetables are neatly placed in a sleeve already tied on one side. Then the prescribed amount of sunflower oil, salt and spices are poured into the same place.
The sleeve is also tied on the other side and the vegetables in it are slightly mixed from the outside. Then it is placed on a baking sheet in the oven, which is preheated to a temperature of + 180 ° C for one hour. In the oven, the sleeve should be placed so that it does not touch the top and side walls, because when heated it swells and, in contact with hot metal, may be damaged.
Within an hour, the oven cooks the vegetables itself, and there is no need for your presence.
After the due date, remove the sleeve from the oven and cool it slightly so that you can fearlessly cut the film from above without getting burned.
The vegetables will float in a lot of flavorful juice, which must be drained off before transferring all the contents to the pot.
Wait for the vegetables to cool to room temperature and puree them with a hand blender or meat grinder. Taste the cooked zucchini caviar and add salt or pepper if needed, and minced garlic if you prefer a spicier meal. This dish has, perhaps, only one drawback - such caviar is not suitable for winter preparations - it must be consumed immediately, maximum stored for several days in the refrigerator.
Zucchini caviar for the winter
And what to do if you want, without suffering especially in the heat, to make blanks from zucchini for long-term storage. In this case, squash caviar can also be cooked in the oven, but for the winter it is made according to a slightly different recipe.
First, the following ingredients are washed and cleaned of excess components:
- Zucchini - 1000 g;
- Onions - 400 g;
- Tomatoes - 1000 g;
- Carrots -500 g;
- Sweet pepper - 300 g;
- Garlic - 5 cloves.
Added to them:
- Dill, parsley;
- Vegetable oil - 4 tablespoons;
- Salt and pepper.
To prepare squash caviar, all pre-peeled vegetables are cut into oblong pieces. Then take a deep baking sheet, grease it with half of the prescribed amount of butter and put the chopped vegetables on the bottom, observing the following sequence: first, onions, then carrots, then zucchini, and pepper and tomatoes on top. From above, the vegetables are poured with the remaining amount of oil, and all this is sent to an unheated oven. The heating temperature is set at + 190 + 200 ° С.
The first half hour after the start of cooking caviar from baked vegetables, you can do other things. Then remove the baking sheet and mix the vegetables gently. Set to bake for another 40-45 minutes.
After turning off the oven and cooling, the vegetables are transferred with a slotted spoon to the pan and finely chopped herbs and garlic, as well as salt and spices are added to them. It is at this stage that you need to take a blender and turn the entire contents of the pan into a homogeneous puree.
Everything is thoroughly mixed and the pan with baked vegetables is put on the fire. In order for the caviar to be well stored in winter, the contents of the pan must be boiled after boiling for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, but being careful, since the vegetable mass during boiling can "spit" with hot splashes.
Then the ready-made caviar from zucchini, while still hot, is laid out on freshly sterilized hot jars and rolled up with lids sterilized in boiling water. In this case, the dish prepared according to this recipe does not even require the addition of vinegar for successful storage throughout the entire winter period. After rolling, the cans must be turned upside down and wrapped with something warm until they cool completely within 24 hours. This is necessary for additional sealing of the canned food.
You can store such caviar even in normal room conditions, but preferably not in the light. Because it is in the dark that all the taste properties of the prepared dish are ideally preserved.
