Recipe: Zucchini Soup with Mint and Ricotta Cream
Okay, so zucchini is now here, and it’s just the beginning of a long season with this potentially boring vegetable. But get it now while it’s young and sleek and truly delicious, for soon it’ll be big and starchy and not much good for anything except stuffing and baking with rice, herbs, and sausage (actually a great Southern Italian standard, a real nonna dish).
If you have these things growing in your garden, I know you’re dreading the future, when your zucchini will start to multiply like crazy and grow huge as torpedoes. Don’t worry, I’ll be posting appropriate recipes for dealing with that problem later in the summer (including one for that sausage-stuffed zucchini), but for now, here’s a light and delicate soup to make with the firm little ones I’m now finding at my Greenmarkets.
Oh, and don’t forget the ultimate gift from zucchini, its lovely yellow blossoms. I’ll work on some new recipes for those, too, and send them along to you ASAP.
Happy zucchini season.
And for your listening pleasure, here’s Tim Curry singing “The Zucchini Song.”
Zucchini Soup with Mint and Ricotta Cream
(Serves 4)
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 fairly large spring onion, diced, using some of the tender green stalk
1 large starchy baking potato, peeled and cut into small dice
2 fresh spring garlic cloves, sliced
6 small young zucchini, unskinned and cut into medium dice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
About 5 big scrapings of nutmeg
1 cup chicken broth
The grated zest from 1 small lemon
1 cup whole milk ricotta
About 2 dozen fresh spearmint leaves
In a large soup pot, heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the onion and the potato, and let them soften for a minute or so. Now add the garlic and the zucchini, season with salt, black pepper, and the nutmeg, and sauté to release all the flavors, about 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth, and then add enough water to just cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil. Turn the heat down a touch, and cook at a lively simmer, uncovered, until all the vegetables are tender when poked with a knife, about 15 minutes.
Purée the soup in a food processor until smooth, and pour it back into a clean pot. Add the lemon zest, and taste for seasoning, adding more salt and black pepper if you think you need it. The soup should have a medium-thick consistency, so add a little warm water if you have to.
Put the ricotta into a food processor. Add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of salt, and a few gratings of black pepper. Add a drizzle of hot water, and pulse until the mixture is smooth and creamy (it should have the consistency of crème fraîche). Put the ricotta mix in a small bowl. Chop up half of the mint leaves, and mix them into the ricotta.
When ready to serve, reheat the soup gently if necessary. Ladle it into soup bowls, and top each serving with a dollop of the ricotta cream. Cut the remaining mint into julienne, and scatter it on the soup.
Erica De Mane 
Yo, chef! Are they selling zucchini blossoms at the Green Market? Mmmmmmm. ‘Tis the only think that perhaps I’ll miss of the auld Yankee cottage is the pumpkins I grew one year – those were tasty flowers, all battered and fried. Yes indeed-ee!
Curtis, Yeah, they got them now. Kinda pricey. Maybe wait a few weeks for more abundance and cheapness.
E
In my dad’s New Jersey garden, he always let the zucchini’s grow torpedo-size. Maybe because he grew up in the depression ? He was a great gardener though. I’ll never forgive him for digging up those gooseberry bushes and giving them to a neighbor while I was off at college, him thinking no one in the family liked them ! Hell, even our dog ate those berries straight off the bush.
Getting back to the topic, me and my mom (italian american naples salerno) would cut up those monsterous squashes and make what she called “ciambotte” not sure how to spell it. Sauté plenty of onion. Add the cubed zucchini, once soft add in gorgeous jersey right off the vine tomatoes. At the end, we’d put on some basil leaves from the garden, and add mozzarella. For us at the time, this meant Polly-O. I really loved that dish.
I must ammend my comment above. My mom called this dish (phonetic spelling) “coo-cut-zeel”. We assumed this was in reference to her elder sister (Cecelia’s) cooking skills, and who made an even better version than my mom. Back in the time, I thought the name of the dish was ” Cook it, Cel !!”
Marieta,
We made ciambotte too. Actually my godfather Billy was famous for it. His was more like a big ratatouille, with zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. Sometimes he’d throw in lumps of sausage. He’d put the pot up on an outdoor grill and let it bubble away. It was excellent. No mozzarella though. I like that idea.
Sorry about the gooseberries. So sad. My father went into my room when I was off at college and threw out all my drawing notebooks, saying they were a fire trap. I never quite got over that either.