Stuffed zucchini

Today's lunch is stuffed zucchini or kolokithakia gemista with avgolemono!

5 servings

5 zucchinis
1 onion
1 garlic clove
6-7 tablespoons olive oil
salt, pepper
200gr round mid grain Carolina rice (or whatever rice you prefer but this one works best for stuffed zucchini, gemista etc)
300 gr ground beef
1/4 bunch parsley
1/3 bunch dill

Cut the top of the zucchini so as to create little caps. And remove the inside with a spoon, you want the walls to have like half centimeter thickness. (Don't throw away the inside you pulled out you can make zucchini patties with it unless it has lots of spores). If you have long zucchini you can open them from the side like little boats or on top. Now put in a pot the 4 tablespoons of the oil (reduce or increase based on your preference) and saute the rice wash it first) and ground beef with all the other ingredients. In mid heat ( in a range from 1-9 I put it in 6-7) mix it with your spoon a few times so everything is sauteed perfectly. Pull aside. Now take the zucchini and make little holes around them with a fork. Now we fill them, don't fill all the way to the top but around 3/4. Close the caps put in water almost till all the way to the top right before the caps. Put in the water the rest of the olive oil, salt and pepper. Boil in a closed pot for about an hour at 7. (leave the pot top slightly open as shown in the picture)! You can check with a fork if the zucchini are ready and adapt cooking time on your kitchen. Once ready pull aside.

For the avgolemono I prefer it thicker so here's my recipe.

(Optional to make avgolemono creamy, 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 pinch ground nutmeg)
Zucchini broth,
lemon juice of 1-2 lemons,
salt, pepper,
1 egg yolk,

You can skip oil, flour and nutmeg and just mix together the zucchini broth with lemon juice etc and add the yolk at the end!

Once the zucchini are ready, in very low heat (on a scale of 1-9 I go for 3-4) first you add the oil and the flour, and whisk together it's going to be like wet soil. Then start to gradually put broth from the zucchini and whisk, you'll have to do this several times until the texture is what you want, adapt the thickness at your preference. It will gradually get thinner. I usually do it a bit more runny than a bechamel, now add the rest of the ingredients and whisk together. Lastly add the egg yolk and whisk all together remove from the heat as it will burn at the bottom!

Then add all of the avgolemono on top of the zucchini and voila ready! It's great with greek yoghurt and green salad as a side!