Zucchini and Spinach Gratin

Another week, another refrigerator drawer filled to the brim with garden zucchini. Sound familiar? To take a break from our usual (almost daily in the summer) way to cook up the zucchini (see mom’s summer squash), we prepared a classic French gratin, with grated zucchini, spinach, onions sautéed with bacon, a persillade of parsley and garlic, all bound together with a few eggs, tossed with Parmesan, and baked until golden brown.

Zucchini has never tasted so good.

I think the bacon might have something to do with it. And maybe the Parmesan. And the onions, and garlic. Okay, everything. The combination is perfect.

The recipe looks more involved than it is. Most of the time is in the baking or in the allowing the zucchini and spinach to drain excess moisture. The hardest part is grating the zucchini (a breeze if you have a food processor) and the Parmesan. The trick to a successful recipe is squeezing out as much moisture as you can from the zucchini and spinach. Tossing the zucchini with salt and allowing it to drain for half an hour will help draw out a lot of its moisture. If you don’t do this I’m guessing that you might end up with something that is too loose, with too much moisture for the eggs to do their work as a binder.

Best part? The recipe uses two whole pounds of zucchini! Which in our case should use up at least a day or a day and a half’s worth of garden produce. Enjoy. ;-)

Zucchini and Spinach Gratin Recipe

The recipe calls for bacon and I think it's an important flavor component. For those of you who don't eat pork, or meat, you can substitute butter and or olive oil (a couple tablespoons) to sauté the onions.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs zucchini
• Kosher salt
• 1 lb frozen spinach*
• 3 slices of thick cut bacon (about 3 ounces), cut crosswise 1/4-inch pieces
• 1 large onion
• 1 handful of parsley (about 1/2 cup of leaves, lightly packed)
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3 eggs
• Olive oil

* Or 6 packed cups of fresh chopped spinach leaves, blanched and drained

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