Russian Zucchini Paste
Russian Zucchini Paste
This is recipe of zucchini paste from my mom: easy to cook, contains only vegetables (zucchini, tomatoes and onions) and is very-very tasty.
I usually eat this paste on bread toast, for breakfast or as a snack; however it is also a nice side dish to help increase vegetable servings in your daily diet.
Zucchini paste can be served warm or cooled down.
Ingredients:
- 3 medium size zucchini
- 2-3 big tomatoes
- 1 big onion
- 2 tablespoons of all purpose flour
- 2-3 tablespoons of sunflower oil
- Salt to taste
How to prepare, step-by-step:
-
Prepare ingredients:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 1 -
Start of by blanching tomatoes (don’t remove seeds): cut skin of each tomato X-like on the tip, put into boiling water for 20 sec, then put under cold water; once they are cooled down enough – remove skin:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 2 -
Warm up high side skillet with 1-1.5 a table spoon of oil over moderate heat. Peel onion and slice it into quarter circles, move to warmed up skillet and fry until soft and colored, stir from time to time:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 3 -
While onions are cooking, slice all zucchini into half inch tick circles:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 4 -
Warm up another skillet with other 1-1.5 table spoon of oil over moderate-high heat. Dust zucchini pieces in flour:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 5 -
Move them to the warmed up skillet and fry until golden brown from one side:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 6 -
While zucchini are cooking, chop peeled tomatoes and add them to the fried onions; continue cooking, stir from time to time:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 7 -
When zucchini are ready from one side, flip them to other one and fry until the same color:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 8 -
Move browned zucchini pieces to pot with thick sides (cast-iron one, dutch oven, or so) and arrange them in 1 layer:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 9 -
Tomato and onion sauce should look more like a paste by now, add salt to it (consider that sauce should share salt with zucchini as well, so put more), then turn burner under sauce off:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 10 -
You will need to alternate layers of zucchini with layers of sauce, so depending of size of cooking pot it maybe 2 layers of each or more (mine pot is big enough to fit 2 layers of each). So pour part of sauce over first layer of fried zucchini:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 11 -
Continue frying rest of zuchinni (dipped into flour) from both sides and move cooked pieces to the pot to arrange second layer (or more):
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 12 -
Pour rest of the sauce over the last layer of fried zucchini, cover with a lid and put on low heat burner, bring to slow boil:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 13 -
Continue cooking until zucchini are completely soft (about 50mins on slow boiling under a lid), then mix good with a spoon, add more salt to taste if need, and transfer to the serving dish:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 14 -
Zucchini paste can be served warm or cooled down, it is great topping for finger food (bread toasts, crackers) or a side dish:
Russian Zucchini Paste Recipe: Step 15
View Comments
Julia, your site is the wonderful gift to me that I found accidentally and very happy I did. I was looking for zucchini paste and first was yours. I prepared exactly as you wrote with proportional amount of onions and tomatoes. Your recipe is great, taste is great and everybody loves it. Whatever I previously did with zucchini to make a paste, I was not successful. Your recipe is very tasty. I think that the main thing is that you fried zucchini in flour and this is the key. If you do stew with zucchini, onion and tomatoes, result will not be such great.
Thank you