Courgette, or as I know it, marrow or zucchini, so many different names for one green looking veg that doesn’t actually taste that great.

I very seldom by it, maybe now and then depending if I come across a recipe that contains it, otherwise you will never find it in our fridge… nope, never.

Okay, maybe I am lying, I accidently bought a couple the other day at the super market because I had some brainy idea that I would use it in a dish or something like that, of course that never materialised , but seeing as the sell by date on this fresh produce was slowly creeping up, I decided to do something with them.

I came across this recipe in Nisha Katona’s recipe book and at first I didn’t really want to try it out, there seemed to be an endless amount of cutting and chopping and then there was an ingredient called panch phoron. I have never heard of it. Let alone seen it in the local Indian spice store.

I tried buying it online but there was no way I was going to buy a 50g bottle and pay an arm and a leg just to get it shipped to my front door. Nope, never going to happen.

I tried my other best friend … GOOGLE and I came across a homemade version, which seemed simple enough.

The recipe itself was easy, after you got all the chopping and the mixing of new spices out of the way.

The verdict, my parents were divided on this dish. Both of them loved the dish, minus the marrows, they either ate around the marrow or they picked each and every piece of the marrow out of the food and left it on the side to show me that they were not fans of the marrow.

Ingredients:

• 4 x tbsp. olive oil.
• 2 ½ x tsp panch pharon
• 2 x small dried red chillies.
• 1 x onion, finely chopped.
• 4 x potatoes, peeled and cubed.
• ¼ x tsp turmeric powder.
• 1 x tsp chilli powder.
• 1 x can crushed tomatoes.
• 4 x bay leaves.
• 2 x zucchini, diced.
• 1 x tsp salt.
• 1 x tsp castor sugar.
• Juice of ½ x lemon.

Method:

• Heat oil in the pot.
• Add the onions, salt and panch pharon, give everything a good stir.
• Cook until the onions are soft/
• Add the dried chillies and bay leave and mix.
• Add the tomatoes, sugar, cover and cook till they have released all their water.
• Add the turmeric powder and chilli powder and mix.
• Add in the potatoes and enough water to cover the potatoes.
• Cook till the potatoes are almost soft.
• Add the zucchini and mix.
• Cook till the water has evaporated and both the zucchini and potatoes are soft.
• Pour over the lemon juice and toss to mix.