Courgette Gateaux recipe by Buckingham’s restaurant Derby

Courgette Gateaux recipe by Nick Buckingham

A layered stack of bread croute and pan-fried vegetables, these courgette gateaux make an impressive party piece to serve alongside a main meat dish or add variety to a vegetarian main course. Plus they look fantastic and taste good too.

They do take a while to prepare and put together, but can be prepared in advance earlier in the day and just popped in the oven to bake 5 minutes before serving.

Amount
8 Portions

Ingredients
8 Slices of Bread
8 Small Courgettes
Garlic Butter
110g / 4 oz Finely Chopped Shallots
Thyme
275g / 10 oz Tomatoes
Grated Parmesan Cheese

Method
Prepare the courgettes by scoring down the sides with a canelle knife, then slice them thinly. Pan fry them in butter and garlic until soft.
Chop the shallots finely and fry them in butter with thyme until soft.
Skin and deseed the tomatoes then dice them.
Cut croutes with a 3 inch / 7.5cm cutter from the slices of white bread. Pan fry them in butter until golden.
In the cutter, place the croute and then layer with the courgette slices, then shallots, then tomato.
Season and repeat process until the cutter is full. Press down and finish with cour-gettes and dust with grated parmesan cheese. Remove the cutter carefully to keep the gateaux intact. Make the rest of the gateaux in the same way.
Just before serving, bake the gateaux to order in the oven at 200C / 400F for five minutes with care.

To Serve
These vegetable gateau will complement any meat dish

Points to Watch
Keep in round shapes
Can be made early in the day to prevent serving problems.

View Nick Buckingham’s restaurant with one table, book online or call 01332 925 016.

read more of Nick Buckingham’s incredible recipes