About Melting Summer Squash
Yes, the recipe has “zucchini” in its name. But, as I talk about in my All About Zucchini and Other Summer Squash post, you can substitute any of the other summer squashes. Second, once you make anything with melted summer squash, you’ll see how you can use this technique to make so many different dishes such as grilled cheese, pastas, and frittatas. Melting is my single favorite way to prepare summer squash. The reason is, as I also explain in my All About Zucchini and Other Summer Squash post, that summer squash is very high in water content. Melting sweats off much of the water, reducing the squash into something with much more flavor and giving it a rich and creamy texture. “Melting” describes the result more than it does the technique. The technique is to first grate the squash and then to sauté the squash in with either butter or olive oil and a pinch of salt until the result is reached. It should take 15 minutes, 20 tops. You can also season the melted squash by infusing garlic or fresh rosemary into the olive oil used to sauté. Or you can add a teaspoon of dried thyme or oregano at the start of the sauté, or other chopped fresh herbs towards the end of the sauté. It’s also really nice with just that pinch of salt that went in at the beginning.
Ad Hoc Pizza Recipe
As I describe in my Pizza Mother Dish Technique post, don’t let the challenge of pizza dough stop you from making interesting, delicious, and healthy pizza at home. If making dough from scratch with a 72-hour ferment is your thing, go for it! But there are good options for buying dough ready to bake, along with pre-cooked flatbreads. Do what works for you. Choose your crust methodology, and the following ad hoc description of what goes on top should be enough to get you there.
For this pizza, I chose to quickly infuse a tablespoon of olive oil with a couple cloves of minced garlic before sautéing the grated squash. I grated the squash by hand with a box grater. For other dishes, where I melt a full two and a half pounds of squash, I lean on my food processor for the grating. One pound of grated summer squash pretty much fills a 10-inch skillet. Stir in ½ teaspoon of salt to the squash, both for flavor and also to help coax water out of the squash. Early on, the squash is poaching in its own juice as much as it is sautéing. You can hear the sizzle of water boiling off the skillet surface and see the steam rise. If you stir out a hollow area in the center of the skillet, you will see water pool into the hole. But as the sauté continues, the squash has less water to give. After 15 minutes of sautéing, the squash should be reduced by about fifty percent. If it takes a little longer for you, don’t worry. Let it go, it should certainly be 20 minutes max. Once the squash is melted, it’s ready to be used to complement some nice melty cheese on a pizza. Skip the sauce. Simply put down half of the grated cheese, spread melted squash in a relatively even layer over the pie, and then spread the other half of the cheese across the top. Bake it up and you have a delicious summer pizza pie!
