Zucchini’s are in season and I have been looking for new tasty recipes to try. Peter’s post on Kalofagas for ” Stuffed Courgettes (Kolokithakia Gemista) With Avgolemeno Sauce ” was inspiring. It combines several of my favorite flavours including lemon, dill, and mint with the zucchini. The stuffed zucchini’s are a bit of work but they are a one dish meal.
The stuffed zucchini’s go well with the avgolemono sauce both flavour wise and ingredient wise. The egg whites left over from the avgolemono sauce can be thrown into the zucchini stuffing and the stock that is used to simmer the zucchini’s can be used as the stock in the avgolemono sauce.
This recipe makes a lot of food. The 4 large stuffed zucchini are enough for 4 servings and only about half of the stuffing fit into the cored zucchini. There was enough stuffing left over for another 2-3 servings. The stuffing tastes good all by itself so I had a few lunches for the work week.
The avgolemono sauce did not thicken enough but it tasted great. I tried making the sauce a second time and I was able to get the sauce to thicken properly. The avgolemono sauce is similar to a hollondaise sauce .
Kolokithakia Gemista (Stuffed Courgettes) with Avgolemono Sauce
ingredients
- 4 large zucchinis (cut in half and cored – reserve the insides for the stuffing)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 4 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 1 pound ground meat (beef, pork, lamb, etc.)
- 1/4 cup parsley (chopped)
- 1/3 cup dill (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon mint (chopped)
- zest of 1 lemon (zest the lemon from the Avgolemono sauce)
- 1 cup arborio rice
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 egg whites (use the ones left over from the Avgolemono sauce)
- 1 cup chicken stock
- avgolemono sauce
directions
- Heat the oil in a pan.
- Saute the onions until tender.
- Add the garlic and saute until fragrant.
- Set the onions and garlic aside.
- Brown the ground meat in the pan.
- Drain any excess fat.
- Add the onions, garlic, parsley, dill, mint, lemon zest, rice, chicken stock and the zucchini that was removed from the inside.
- Simmer for 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked.
- Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the egg whites.
- Stuff the zucchini’s with the mixture.
- Place the stuffed zucchini in a pan.
- Pour the chicken stock into the pan.
- Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until the zucchini is tender.
- Plate the stuffed zucchini and use the remaining stock for the avgolemono sauce.
Kevin, congrats…they look great and you got the Avgolemono on the 2nd try and you didn’t scramble them!
With about 3 halved per person, the batch feeds a dinner for 4.
Hi Kevin – thanks for the comments you left on my blog! This is my first visit to yours… it looks fantastic, I have a lot of reading to do today!! (so much for getting work done) 🙂
This was the first recipe that popped up on yahoo for kolokithakia gemista. I left out the mint and they were delicious. Thank you Eleana.
Great use of the zuke.