Globecooking recipe : Courgettes Involtini (Italy)

The first recipe that I tried from last month's Italian-themed Kitchen Trotter box was these Courgettes Involtini or Dried Courgette Rolls.They are designed as a starter but they are also perfect as nibbles to accompany drinks or as part of a smorging platter.

They used one ingredient from the Kitchen Trotter box - a bag of grilled and dried courgette strips - but you could use fresh grilled courgette strips too.

Courgettes Involtini

ingredients :

a bag of grilled, dried courgette strips (or 1 large courgette, cut into strips and grilled)

1 tin of tuna in oil (about 100g)

4tbsp parmesan

1 egg

a few capers, chopped

salt & freshly ground black pepper

a few fresh basil leaves (or 1tbsp dried basil)

a drizzle of olive oil

a sprinkle of dried breadcrumbs

After soaking the dried courgette strips in hot water for 15 minutes, remove and drain on kitchen paper.

In a bowl, mix together the tuna, parmesan, egg, capers, basil, salt and pepper.

Mash it all together with a fork and season to taste - only a little bit because it's got raw egg in it. Make sure you put in plenty of black pepper. I only had dried basil to hand and we were out of capers so I substituted in finely chopped gherkin slices.

Spread some of the tuna mixture along the whole length of each courgette strip.

Then carefully roll it up tightly.

Use a cocktail stick to hold it in place.

Put them on a baking tray covered in foil.

Drizzle with olive oil - I used lemon-infused oil to give it a nice zing.

Sprinkle liberally with dried breadcrumbs.

Then pop them in the oven at 200°C for 10-15 minutes until the lovely smell of baked cheese and breadcrumbs starts wafting around the kitchen and they are nicely browned on top.

They can be eaten hot or cold - we ate ours just warm and they were very tasty. The only thing I would change is cutting the bigger strips in half lengthways because they were slightly too big to eat comfortably in one mouthful and they're not easy to bite in half !

*** Click through for my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

Fancy trying some more Italian cuisine? How about Chicken Breast with Pine Nuts & Parmesan, Crostata, Parmesan Crusted Risotto Balls or Sicilian Salad?