However I often think that courgettes are a really under rated vegetable, I think this might be that when ever you see them in the shops they are the standard dark green uninspiring variety.
Not that there is anything wrong with dark green courgettes, but I would like to introduce you to another world of varieties that are of all shapes, sizes and colours.
To immediately add a bit of colour there are the traditional shaped varieties that are bright yellow such as Gold Rush
or the stripy Coucourzelle, which is a variety which combines the two colours which produces slim straight fruits of excellent nutty flavour.
Keeping with the stripes we are growing the Piccolo, an attractive 'tennis ball' size round striped green courgette, which not only look good but have excellent flavour.
Very similar is the Eclipse, slightly paler and a little more defined, with rounder fruits, which if picked small can be eaten raw. Larger fruits are perfect for barbeque kebabs or brilliant for stuffing.
Staying with barbeque beauties, the Griller's mix variety have been bred exactly for that, which produces fruits which are less water, firmer fleshed and oval. This variety grow in three colours, a pale glaucous green, as well as striking golden yellow and a deep dark green.
However for shape the title of the best has to go to the Patty Pan, a little like a flying saucer, this unusual variety is small in size, has a round and shallow shape with scalloped edges, somewhat resembling a small toy top. The name 'patty pan' apparently derives from 'a pan for baking a patty'. They have a very mild taste, with a buttery texture and clean, squash flavour.
Staying on the yellow theme, the Summer Holiday has to be the favourite, with stripes and all!! Producing rounded fruits about the size of a tennis ball, with not just amazing looking little fruits, but ones which have a great flavour and texture, superb for stuffing and baking.
All in all a rather special collection and one which surely dispels the misconception of a under rated vegetable.
Oh and of course the icing on the cake is the flowers, which in some restaurants are more popular than the fruits themselves even more reason to applaud what is really an rather amazing little vegetable.
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