A recipe from my great-aunt Lina, the one who cooked well, told jokes, and hated cats: she was terribly afraid of them and when she came to Rome she was terrified of the idea of ​​meeting one. Once in a restaurant she jumped on the table because a cat had touched her leg.
When I was a child, it was common to meet stray cats downtown.

Aunt Lina’s courgette pudding

  • Preparation time: 60 minutes
  • Ingredients for 6 servings
  • Difficulty: Average difficulty recipe

  • Ingredients
  • For the béchamel:
  • 1 ½ oz or 35 g of butter
  • 1 ½ oz or 35 g of flour
  • 1 cup of milk
  • For the pudding:
  • 1 lb or 450 g of Roman zucchini
  • 7 oz or 200 g of béchamel
  • 1 ½ oz or 35 g grated Parmesan
  • 2 yolks
  • 2 egg whites
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Butter to taste
  • Breadcrumbs to taste
  1. Instructions
  2. Cook the courgettes in a pan with a little oil for a few minutes and, after, puree them with a fork.
  3. Meanwhile, prepare a very firm béchamel. For more details on how to do it, look here. Let the béchamel cool.
  4. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff.
  5. Add the grated parmesan to the béchamel, then the yolks and the zucchini puree, and, finally, the beaten egg whites. Fold from the bottom upwards. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Pour the mixture into the single portion aluminum tin, the one we use for cupcakes, buttered and sprinkled with breadcrumbs.
  7. Bake in a hot oven at 325° F for about thirty minutes.
  8. Serve the flan as a side dish or with a parmesan fondue as a single vegetarian dish.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • Add the egg yolks to the mixture one at a time and the egg whites over three times: for the first, the mixture should be mixed well; for the second and third additions, the mixture should be gently folded with a spatula from the bottom to the top so as to not remove the air from the egg whites.
  • You can also use a single mold, 1 US quart mold, always buttered and dusted with breadcrumbs. In this case, the cooking times double.
  • The cooking times depend on the oven used. Each oven is a world of its own.
  • For the parmesan sauce, add a small glass of boiling milk and about 50 g of grated parmesan to the “advanced” béchamel. Mix quickly and serve hot with the flan. In this case, it would be advisable to use a parmesan cheese aged 30 months.

 Aunt Lina and Uncle Tullio