Zucchini Cake With Escalivada Sauce

Ingredients

Escalivada is a delicious Mediterranean dish, based on fresh vegetables baked in the oven and sprinkled with olive oil and salt: peppers are a must, but you can also add aubergines, onions, tomatoes, and garlic. Oven bake, peel and serve!

• 1kg zucchini
• 1 kg onions
• 4 spoons of olive oil
• 1 box of cheese wedges
• 2 cans of evaporated milk
• 8 eggs
• Salt
• Black pepper
• 1 dl olive oil

To prepare the escalivada sauce:

• 2 red blocky peppers
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• A few spoons of olive oil
• Salt
• 1 dl whipping cream

Preparation

1. Peel the zucchini and the onions. Cut the zucchini into small cubes, and allow them to soak in water for 30 minutes. Cut the onion into thin slices.
2. Heat some oil in a pot and stew the onions and the zucchini; cover and reduce the heat to low. The vegetables will produce some water when cooking; let the water evaporate, but do not allow the vegetables to become brown.
3. Blend the cheese wedges together with the evaporated milk.
4. Beat the eggs, and mix with the beaten cheese wedges/milk, the zucchini, and the onions.
5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
6. Grease a baking pan (26 cm diameter) and pour in the mixture.
7. Place the baking pan in a water bath and oven bake the zucchini cake for 30-40 minutes.
8. Remove from the baking pan and cover with the Escalibada sauce.
9. Escalibada sauce: Clean the peppers, removing the stem and the seeds. Grease with olive oil, sprinkle with salt (inside and outside). Peel the onions and the garlic, and cut in half. Oven bake all the vegetables for approximately one hour.
10. Peel the peppers. Use the blender to mix the peppers, the onion and the garlic, and finally add the whipping cream. Add salt and pepper if needed, and heat right through before pouring the sauce over the zucchini cake.

Garnish: Garnish the zucchini cake with croutons.

Suggestion: When oven baking peppers, it is useful to bake as many as possible. You can always use them in a salad. Or you can even turn the pepper sauce from this recipe into a delicious summer soup: just add some stock and let it cool.

Author: Paloma (Madrid-Spain)