I’m always surprised when people I talk to are surprised that you can eat courgettes, aka zucchini, raw. In actual fact, raw is one of the best ways to eat a courgette!
When you shave/slice raw veggies really thinly, basically their entire personality changes. A courgette, or summer squash (aka patty pan squash), sliced into rounds, on a mandoline, loses its raw stiffness, and becomes ready to take (and abosrb) all the olive oil, lemon juice, and Parmesan you can throw at it!
This spectacular salad uses 3 of my favourite cooking concepts: (1) using raw veg, not leaves, as a salad base, (2) combining all sorts of different textures, and (3) creating some big flavour contrasts in the same bite. With this salad, you’ve got the crispness of the raw courgette rounds next to really yummy peas, as well as a lot of leafy basil. That base then gets tossed in a simple yet delicious dressing of extra virgin olive oil, lemon, and finely grated Parmesan, which coats every bite in a salty and savoury and lovely sheen.
Then you bring in some fresh burrata. That is torn apart and gently folded into the salad, and then punctuated by the buttery crunch of your roasted pistachios, plus the heat of Calabrian chilli. The overall effect is bright, creamy, crunchy, and spicy, all at once. This is the kind of effortless and low stress salad that looks like incredible on the table, but takes hardly more than ten minutes to pull together. Enjoy!
Serves: 2 to 4
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Small baking tray
Mandoline or sharp chef’s knife
Chopping board
Medium mixing bowl
Microplane or fine grater
Large serving platter
1/2 cup (60g) raw pistachios
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