Vegetable For All Occasions | The French Chef Season 8 | Julia Child

Julia Child showcases zucchini — a vegetable that’s always with us. Here’s how to turn it into several dishes, and how to make a handsome vegetable boat out of the giant zucchini that grew in your garden. Zucchini takes well to being sauteed with onions, baked with a zesty cheese sauce, blended in a green vegetable soup or used as containers.

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Cooking legend and cultural icon Julia Child, along with her pioneering public television series from the 1960s, The French Chef, introduced French cuisine to American kitchens. In her signature passionate way, Julia forever changed the way we cook, eat and think about food.

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-This is zucchini. The large, economy size. It’s a vegetable for all occasions. Today on "The French Chef." NARRATOR: "The French Chef" is made possible by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation. -Welcome to "The French Chef." I’m Julia Child. You know zucchini is an all-year-round vegetable. And although it’s called summer squash, you can get it in December just as well as you can get it in March. And it’s supposed to be a lovely and tender vegetable. And that’s what means– what’s meant by summer squash. And if you take your finger nail and poke, it goes right easily through the skin. Which I don’t think supermarkets would enjoy if you did that. But, also, another way you can tell is when you cut it. And the seeds– you can hardly even see any seeds there. And everything is moist. And delicious. And tender. And there are other varieties of summer squash besides zucchini. There is the yellow crookneck squash. Which has about the same shape as a zucchini. But it’s yellow. And it’s not quite as tender. But it’s a very nice One. And there’s the pattypan. Which is a round squash. And there is a– one that looks like a zucchini but has red stripe– that has black and green stripes on it. And is a very loud– or much more loud look. The zucchini you can always tell because it’s fairly straight. And it looks very much like a– rather like a cucumber. But just remember that summer squash means tender. And now, as a contrast, we have my neighbor Alice’s giant zucchini. This one got away from her last summer. And it’s rather– it’s gotten rather woody. And as you can see, the difference here– the inside has become– the seeds have developed. But you can still do something with it. And you’re gonna see that later. And now when you get your zucchini, you want to first cut off the little– cut off the little edge here. This is one little end that is grown on the stem. And this is the other end that has the flower. As you remember, some– when you see zucchinis they have a little orange flower. And you can cook them. And they’re very nice in deep fried fat. And then scrub each zucchini under running water with a vegetable brush. That’s because they work. They, uh, lie on the ground some of the time. And they can get dirty. And you want to make sure that they are nice and clean. And be sure when you buy the zucchini that it’s firm and glossy. When you press it, that it doesn’t have any soft spots. And really it looks healthy. And, as you can see, that has a nice healthy shine to it. And when you buy them, keep them in the– in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. And they’ll keep for about a week if they’re very fresh. And we’re going to do– do a dish that has grated zucchini with it. In fact, two recipes. And when you– when you have zucchini– which is the same family as cucumbers and eggplant– they’re a very watery vegetable. And you’ve got to deal with the water in some way. And there are several ways to deal with the water. Cause if you– if you don’t deal with it it’s an incipient mush. And it should be– and it’s a delicious vegetable if you deal with the water. And there’s one way you can do is to boil it whole. And the other way is to grate it. So I’m gonna start out with the grating one. And I want to have about three cups of grated zucchini. And I’m gonna put them into a colander. And then they’re gonna have some salt on them. And the reason you– this is three cups of zucchini. And I want about a– a teaspoon– half a teaspoon of salt. And then you turn it around in the colander. And set it over a bowl so that the juices will drain. And if you have sliced zucchini– sliced, raw zucchini you get rid of the juices in the same way. Put them in a colander and toss them with a little salt. And wait til the juices come down into the bottom of the bowl. With the grated zucchini you can– uh, as you’ll see in a moment after they’ve salted. Cause the salt draws the water out. And that’s the reason that you use salt both for eggplant and for zucchini. And you see, that’s how it looks. That lovely green vegetable. You always– because it’s so tender– you always use the skin when you’re cooking zucchini. And now, while those are quietly draining, I’m gonna get to the all-purpose flavoring for zucchini. Which is onion. And for these three cups of grated zucchini, I want about a cup to a cup and a half of onion flavoring. And these are just gonna be sliced onions. And you cut it in half. Slice off the two ends. And then go chop, chop, chop, chop. And as always, with– see there’s your root end. Make two or three thin slices there. Turn it around. Two or three thin slices. And then crosswise holding your knife, just slice right down. And the reason you cut off the two ends first is so that the slices will come apart. If you don’t cut off the two ends it’ll all stay together. And what you want is that the onions and the zucchini look– look rather alike when they cook. There. Those go into a measure. And we want, as I said, about, oh, one and a half to two cups. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference if you have a little bit more or a little bit less. But I’m a great onion lover so I always make a little bit more if there’s any question. Now the onions are first to be so sauteed. You can use either butter or oil. I’m gonna use butter this time. Just cause I happen to have some. And in go the onions. And these are to cook slowly until they’re just tender. These would be called onions etouffee or stifled onions. And you cover them. And then let them cook. And it will probably take about six or eight minutes. But keep watching them because you don’t want them to cook too hard. And now– while the onions have started cooking– now I can get back to the rest of the zucchini business. And this is the brutal part. How to brutalize your vegetables. That’s what– that’s a great French thing to do. And they always make very good vegetables. Now you want to squeeze it. And you can squeeze it by hand. Like that. Look at all the– look at all that beautiful green juice that comes out. But that takes a long time. The best system is to do it in a potato ricer. I always call it a potato masher. Some people call it a ricer. Do you remember– I mean, they– you can also do grated coconut milk the same way. You put it in. And go– look at all that juice. We’re not going to waste any of that juice. Even if it’s a brutal thing to do. But you get all of the– all of the juice out. And the reason you want to do this is if you’re gonna saute the zucchini and you have all this water in, it’s just not gonna saute properly. It’s just gonna turn into mush. This is very much like, you know, when you’re making mushroom duxelles. You squeeze all the water out. And you can use the same system for that. And now these are ready to be sauteed. And I have some ready– ready cooked onions. Which are here. You see, those are tender. And I’m gonna heat up the juices. And in goes this grated zucchini. So we had about– that’s about– to refresh your memory– about a cup and a half of sauteed onions. And about three cups of grated zucchini that has been meanly squeezed. And then you want to saute it. And once that it’s– once it’s been grated, it just takes just a very small amount of time to cook. And that’s– that’s one thing that’s also– you could just cook– serve it absolutely plain like this. It makes a very nice vegetable. And it’s certainly very quick to do. When it only really takes– to cook it tender– say three or four minutes of sauteing. Then you can finish it covered. And if you wanted, you could add, say, a crushed clove of garlic to it. But for this beginning, we just want it cooked until it’s beginning to get tender. Now this is the way you start a great number– number of recipes that are using grated– grated zucchini. And the sauteing gives it an added flavor. No matter what else you’re gonna do to it. Because the zucchini has a rather mild flavor anyway. And you wanna saute it. And the recipe I’m gonna do now is a very simple one with a nice namea– a gratin de courgettes bernaise. A courgette is a zucchini. This means it’s gonna be having– gonna be baked with a cheese sauce. So the first thing I’m gonna do is to put in three tablespoons of flour. And the sauce gets made right in the pan. And if you need any more butter or oil, add it at this point. Here are your three tablespoons of flour. And you want to cook that for about two minutes. And I’ve– you can put in, say, at this point– if you feel that the butter isn’t– that the flour isn’t getting absorbed, add a little bit more butter. Like that. And the two minutes of cooking is to cook the flour. As always. So that you’re not gonna get a nasty, pasty tasting sauce. And then off heat. We stir in the hot zucchini juices. And then it goes back on the heat. It’s off the heat so that it’s not gonna lump up. And then put in a little bit of milk. And we want this just to thicken up. This is a pre-cooking. See that’s thickening. And then you just add the milk. A little bit at a time. Nice thing about grated zucchini is when you serve it to somebody, if they don’t know anything about it, they just think, oh, I’ve never had this vegetable. What is it? And they really haven’t any idea what it is at all. Which is always rather fun. Now that’s thickening up quite nicely. I want to keep it thick. And that’s why I just am adding the milk. A little tiny bit at a time. Then after the milk goes in, it’s gonna get some cream and some cheese. The nice– important thing always in a green vegetable dish, if you want to keep the green is to cook it just until it’s done. And not overcook at all. Because if you overcook or–or keep warm for too long, it’s gonna lose its green color. Now I’m gonna put in a little bit of cream. About a nice big spoonful. That’s special French type creme fraiche. Then you want to be sure and taste it. And if it needs any salt and pepper, put it in. Yup. That should have a little salt and pepper. Taste it very carefully. And always use freshly ground pepper. This is going to get a little more– this depends on– how long to cook this depends on what you’re gonna do with it afterwards. In this case, I’m gonna turn it into a gratin, which in other words means it’s gonna be baked. So it’s going to get– a slightly more cooking. So that I don’t have to cook it anymore at this point. But if you want to do– if you didn’t want to gratine it– you could cook– you could, um, just cook it a few minutes more. Taste it. And then serve it just as it is. In this case, I’m gonna give it a little added flavor by putting some cheese in. That’s a mixture of Parmesan and Swiss. Just a little bit there. So I didn’t add a great deal of cream. I could put a little tiny bit more. That’s so beautiful. If you don’t have creme fraiche just use a nice heavy cream. If you’re on a diet, that’s too bad. Then you just add more cheese and some milk. And now that is ready to go into a gratin dish. Or an oven proof dish. Which this is. But isn’t that a lovely color? And the nice thing about the gratin always is that you could do it ahead of time. I should clean that off. And this is a butter dish. Then it gets some– a little combination of bread crumbs and cheese. And then some melted butter. And this you can get done entirely ahead. And put it in the refrigerator. You could even do it a day ahead. But as always, the important thing is don’t– I mean, if you’re going to– don’t keep it warm any longer than necessary. Because then you’re gonna lose that color. And isn’t that– that’s just a lovely color that it is now. Which you want to preserve all through its cooking. But I’m gonna now– gonna put it into the oven. If it were hot you could just put it under the broiler. And if you’ve had it in the refrigerator, you would probably– you would put it into a 425 degree oven in the upper third. And bake it for about 20 to 30 minutes until it was bubbling beautifully. And nicely browned on top. Just like that. Isn’t that a– that’s a really very pretty dish. So that takes care of that. So an extremely nice vegetable dish. And it’s– it’s also a very fast one. As you can see, I did it– heavens– in about eight or nine minutes. And that was all. Now another thing you can do is soup. And you can use this same– same beginning. There are the– that’s the three cups of zucchini and the 1 and 1/2 cups of onions that have all sauteed together. And you can turn this into an absolutely delicious soup. Called a soupe au pistou verts. I’m gonna show you how to make that. I’m gonna put this over here. What I like about– about something is when you can use the same kind of thing for several different ideas. And I’ve got six cups of boiling water in here. And I want a teaspoon of salt. And then this is a Provencal dish. And in Provence they would use fava beans. They are those great, big, thick potted green beans. And when you open them up, there’s a lot of white hair inside. And then some little beans that look like lima beans. And then you have to peel them. And you get a very nice bean that I think is a cross between the lima bean and the pea. So I’m gonna put in two cups of lima beans into this six cups of boiling salted water. And one cup of peas. And then this will make just about the same– the same dish, I think, as–as you’d get in Provence by using the fava beans. And you let this cook until the lima beans and the peas are just tender. And again, using green vegetables, don’t overcook or you’ll lose the nice green. And then when they’re tender you puree them in a food mill along with the cooking liquid. And you end up with this lovely, lovely green soup base. And then you take your zu– this is your sauteed zucchini and onions. And you just put that in. And you let that– and you let that simmer for just about two or three minutes. And you taste it. And you see naturally if it needs any more salt. Which it does. Just a little bit more. And it’s delicious. And we also– which I almost forgot– we have our grated juice from the grated zucchini. And in that goes. And then– and then we have the pistou part, which is the special flavoring. And this starts out with garlic and a mortar. And you go– with the garlic. I think the garlic press particularly useful in the mortar. Cause you get part of the– part of the pureeing already done. And you could put in two cloves of garlic if you want. Which I think I will. There. Because if you don’t like garlic, I guess you could omit it and use the rest of the– use the rest of the flavoring. But it wouldn’t be quite the same. And now another item is chopped, blanched bacon. So you chop it up very fine. In France, you would use– what they would call– [speaking french] or fresh, unsmoked, unsalted bacon. So the idea is chopping it fast. So again that it will grind up quickly in the mortar. And then that goes into your mortar. But this is an interesting Provencal idea I think. In that the pounding it up— which you pound now. Is gonna give you a special flavor. So pound that until it’s really very fine. And then you want a teaspoon of basil. I’m gonna use a teaspoon of dried basil. If you have fresh basil that would be absolutely marvelous. So I’ve got fragrant dried basil. And then to have a nice fresh herb, some parsley. And that’s all gonna get pounded. Parsley has a very nice flavor. And I think if you don’t– if you are supposed to use fresh basil and you don’t have the fresh stuff you can use the parsley. Now a pea stew is– it comes from pestle and pounding. And the Italians have their version of a pea stew, which is called a pesto, which also uses basil. And you would just pound and pound. And with, of course, with this bacon fat, that also helps transfer the perfumes of the herbs. You just pound, pound, pound. And in any one of these things it’s very important that the garlic get thoroughly mashed into– into a real puree. Because it’s very unpleasant if, like, say, for eating one of these Provencal soups. And they’ve been lazy. And they haven’t pounded properly, and you bite into a big piece of garlic. Particularly as this is not gonna be cooked. It’s only gonna be warmed. Now that is also going to have some egg yolks in. And this is gonna act as a thickening for the soup. So I shall put in there two egg yolks. And they’re gonna get stirred around. You could pound them in. But I don’t see much sense in that. The main thing is to stir them around until they get thick. Smells very good. And then it’s gonna get some cheese in. You can put in up to a third of a cup of cheese. But just see how the consistency is. You can add a little more later if you want. There. Now what was I looking for? I’ll put a little, tiny bit more. And then it should get some– and then you get a little bit of olive oil. Now pound this in. That should go in little by little. Doesn’t that make a nice kind of a– a mess there. It’s delicious– what smells so good, as you can imagine with basil and parsley and garlic. And– and it also makes a very– it gives the– the soup that– as they say je ne sais quoi. I’m always saying that. But that’s what it– what it is, if you don’t know– that you’re gonna have this lovely– if you didn’t know what it was, you would think– well, you’d be amazed. Now there, there’s the consistency of that. See, it’s a rather thick– and you can make it a little bit thinner if you want. Or have a little more– more– more oil in if you what. This is very much up to you. Now when you got your soup that’s now come up to the boil– you could do that. And you could do this ahead. And I’m gonna show you how to serve it when we get to the dining room. But I’ve got one more great recipe. And this is a boiled zucchini. Do you remember that giant zucchini that you saw at the beginning? Well, this is going to be it. This was a present to me from my sister-in-law, who grew it in her garden in Maine. And this was sort of the last zucchini of summer. And this is her idea. And I think this is a very, very good one. Of boiling it in salted water and toweling it out. As you can see, it’s been hollowed out there. And boiling it in salted water until it’s just tender. You can feel it. It’s just slightly tender. And then you fill it with vegetables. And you can use it either as a salad of cold macedoine of vegetables. Or hot vegetables. And I’m gonna do it as hot. And seeing how I have all this lovely butter. I’m going to butter it all up there. And a little salt and pepper. And then I’ve got these vegetables. And they’re gonna go on. But isn’t that– I think this is a nifty idea. And then after you– after you had boiled it up and used it as a vegetable container, you could use the rest of the zucchini as a soup. You probably– I don’t think the skin would be edible. But you could peel it. And grate it. And saute it with onions. And so you would have– this really turns out to be a double type of vegetable dish. Now that’s really very pretty. Isn’t it? I’m gonna put on a little more melted butter. And if you were doing it as a salad you would mix it with– at the last minute– with French dressing. And put in some fresh, chopped chives. I’m gonna put a few vegetables around the side too. Because I have a few that are left over. There. I’m gonna show you how everything looks. In the dining room. Particularly the soup. There. We’re having a meal that consists of nothing but zucchini. That shows what you can do when a vegetable is beautifully cooked. Now there’s our soup. Being served in a special vegetable soup dish. And here’s the pea stew flavoring that goes right on top. And then each person– as he eats it– spoons the soup up and mixes it with that absolutely delicious flavoring. And then you would serve your own homemade French bread along with this. And, as a matter of fact, this zucchini soup and your own homemade French bread would make an absolutely delicious luncheon dish. And people doesn’t– don’t know what it is. And it’s just delicious. So here we’ve got this marvelous soup as a first course. And we’ve got this great gratin dish in the giant vegetable boat as a main course. The only thing I don’t have is a dessert. So if you have a good recipe for zucchini ice cream, let’s have it. That’s all for today on "The French Chef." This is Julia Child. Bon appetit. NARRATOR: "The French Chef" has been made possible by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation. Julia Child is co-author of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes 1 and 2."