AirFryday: Baby gem squash, cooked in an air fryer in minutes
Baby gem squash need help. There's not much flavour in them, and I sometimes think it's a shame to cull them so young, before they have a chance to grow up and become those lovely adult gem squash that I like to cook with parmesan and lots of butter.
Their one advantage is that you can eat the whole thing, their shells being so soft that they're merely a part of the fruit itself. Yes, squash are fruit.
I have a similar problem with patty pans. They have hardly any flavour to speak of, other than tasting vaguely squashy. Or squishy.
Like patty pans, baby gems need to have flavour added to them if they're to be at all palatable.
But, just add flavour, and that little problem is solved.
I decided to give them a go in an air fryer and see how they turned out. Not bad, actually.
Tony's baby gem squash cooked in an air fryer
(Serves 2 as a side dish)
Ingredients
6 to 8 baby gem squash
3 Tbsp Tokara premium multivarietal extra virgin olive oil, or similar
2 tsp Rozendal fynbos vinegar, or balsamic vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp oregano leaves, or 1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and black pepper to taste
Method
Add the olive oil, fynbos vinegar, herbs and seasonings to a bowl and whisk.
Slice the tops off the baby gems, slice them in half through the middle, and add them to the bowl. Toss well.
Preheat the air fryer to 200°C.
Cook for 15 minutes, shaking the basket after 5 and 10 minutes. If not soft enough for your liking, cook for 3 to 5 minutes more.
They should be ready to serve as a side dish. DM
Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award, in 2021 and 2023.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
2 days ago
- Daily Maverick
Lekker Brekker Monday: Ratatouille scrambled eggs
Tomatoes, courgettes and onion are combined to make the base of a one-pan scramble. Ratatouille doesn't have to be as complex and 'cheffy' a thing as the plotline of the famous movie would demand. And Anton Ego isn't going to twitch his critical nose in disgust at the mere sight of this simple breakfast. And that's the point: it's easy and it's quick. And who has the time to spend an hour over making breakfast anyway. Ratatouille can have a number of ingredients in it but at its core it's about tomatoes, courgettes, onion and — if this weren't intended to be eaten at breakfast time — garlic. I generally leave garlic out of any breakfast recipe, for the obvious reason that we don't want to be breathing it over everyone we see that day who hasn't had garlic for breakfast. Leave garlic to lunch or dinner. But aubergine (brinjal) is often found in ratatouille too, and peppers (capsicum) can make an appearance. Fresh herbs are de rigueur, so I included parsley, but basil, thyme and/or oregano would all be welcome. I restricted it to the aforementioned tomato, onion and courgettes, otherwise this scramble would have been unwieldy. Tony's ratatouille scrambled eggs (Serves 2-4) Ingredients 6 XL eggs 4 Tbsp olive oil 1 medium white onion, sliced 4 small courgettes, sliced 3 ripe tomatoes, chopped ⅓ cup chopped parsley Salt and black pepper to taste Method Chop and slice your vegetables. Heat a little oil in a pan and sauté the onion until lightly golden. Remove to a side dish. Add more oil, heat, and add the sliced courgettes. Cook, stirring, until they have softened and taken on some colour. Add all the chopped tomatoes, season with salty and pepper, and continue to cook until it smells fragrant, 3 or 4 minutes, stirring. Add most of the parsley, return most of the onion to the pan, and stir to combine. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk. Add the beaten egg and cook, stirring and scraping, until the eggs have cooked. Taste, adjust seasoning if needed, and serve, with the remaining bits of onion on top and some chopped parsley to garnish. DM Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award, in 2021 and 2023.
Daily Maverick
5 days ago
- Daily Maverick
AirFryday: Cheesy stuffed mushrooms, air fryer style
There's a lovely bite to these mushrooms thanks to the red chillies in them, and they're deliciously cheesy too. Here's another mushroom recipe for the air fryer, not long after I shared this simpler one with you. The big brown fungi are in fine form right now, and when in season any fresh food is likely to be at its best, so take advantage. These are quite different though – this recipe is as much about the stuffing (and they really are stuffed, which I'll explain) as it is about the mushrooms themselves. Here's a tip: that little stem that stares at you when you turn a mushroom upside down is best removed. Its texture isn't nearly as nice as that of the cap, and – especially if you're going to stuff a mushroom – it gets in the way. So, just use a small, sharp knife to cut around the edge of it and pluck it out to be discarded. Another tip: don't just pack your ingredients in, one after the other. Chop and grate everything and put it all in a small(ish) bowl, mix it together with a fork (and season it as well in the process) and then spoon it into the mushroom. Pack it down firmly, using the pack of the spoon, and keep packing more stuffing in until it's all used up. If at this point the mushrooms are not yet full to the brim and you've run out of stuffing, grate extra cheese and pack it on until they're slightly convex at the top. Right? With an upwards curve, rather than down… a meniscus if you like. My stuffing mixture comprised a smallish red onion, grated cheese (I used a mixture of smoked Dutch cheese and Emmental, but any good melting cheese will do), chopped fresh parsley, 2 red chillies (that is, per four mushrooms), fresh garlic, salt and black pepper. I cooked them in the air fryer at just 160°C for 14 minutes, at which point they were beautifully browned on top. Tony's stuffed big brown mushrooms, air fryer style (Makes 4 stuffed mushrooms) Ingredients 4 big brown mushrooms 1 small red onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped ⅓ cup parsley, finely chopped 2 red chillies, seeded and finely chopped Salt to taste Black pepper to taste Olive oil spray 2 cups cheese, grated Method Cut the stems out of the mushroom and season the insides lightly with salt and black pepper. In a small bowl, mix all of the stuffing ingredients together, including the seasoning, and stir with a fork until properly combined. Spoon it evenly into the four mushrooms and pack it down tightly. Preheat the fryer to 160°C. Spray the bottom of the fryer with cooking oil spray. Spray some on top of the stuffed mushrooms too. Air fry at 160°C for 10 minutes, check to see if the top of the stuffing has browned to your liking, and continue cooking for 2 to 4 minutes more if you'd like them to brown some more. DM Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award, in 2021 and 2023.
Daily Maverick
29-07-2025
- Daily Maverick
Souper Tuesday: Italian wedding soup
There's something special about this dish, despite its apparent simplicity. And no, you don't consume this at Italian weddings. Names can be misleading: this soup has nothing whatsoever to do with weddings – not even Italian ones. The only marriage in an Italian wedding soup is between the vegetables, meatballs and pasta it contains. 'Italian wedding soup' is a translation of minestra maritata (soup marriage), but it's the sofrito, the Italian equivalent of France's mirepoix (onion, celery, carrots), that are spliced with meatballs and small pasta in a broth, that make the marriage work. So it's a rather saucy ménage à trois, rather than a conventional marriage. But, for me, the two elements that make this dish special are the tiny meatballs you make by hand, and the parmesan that brings everything together at the end. They are the factors that create an impact of flavour that is not quite there until these ingredients are added. Suddenly, everything changes. The meatballs aren't your standard frikkadel. They're small, made from about 1 teaspoon of a minced meat mixture. And they're made of both beef mince and a kind of pork mince. This can be simple minced/ground pork, or Italian sausage. I interpreted this in my own way, using a chunk of pepper salami that I happened to have in the fridge and which I shredded as finely as I could. It's bound with an egg. So my version will be peppier than most, unless you use a milder salami or other Italian sausage instead. Recipes tend to call for a mild Italian sausage. But what's wrong with a bit of extra flavour? There's also parmesan in the meatballs, as well as breadcrumbs (I used panko), parsley, garlic and oregano. Baby spinach, or escarole (a green leaf in the chicory family), is another ingredient, although I had to swap this out with another green leaf as there was none in my local shops. When you see that I used basil instead, understand please that my small-town life means I sometimes have to compromise. So just get down to Woolies or Checkers and grab some baby spinach instead. The carrier for the soup is chicken stock. You can make your own (recipe below) or use liquid stock dissolved in water. The pasta is meant to be acini de pepe (tiny pasta shaped like grape seeds, hence the name acini, plural of acino, meaning grape), though orzo (pasta resembling rice) is often substituted. I added a strip of hard old parmesan rind to the soup, though this is not usually found in traditional recipes for this broth. Regarding the pasta: here we go again, I thought, as I scanned the pasta sections of three local supermarkets: no small pasta at all. So I boxed clever: I did find some capelli d'angelo (angelhair pasta), which I chopped up. That's a first in my kitchen but it worked out really well. I loved the fine strips of this pasta in my soup bowl. Seasoning the soup with salt is important, and do it to taste. It is meant to be fairly salty, but don't go too far. Tony's Italian wedding soup (Serves 4 generously) Ingredients For the chicken stock: 1 chicken carcass, chopped up 1 large onion, roughly chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped 3 leeks, roughly chopped 4 cloves Handful of parsley, chopped 3 thyme sprigs 1 scant tsp black peppercorns 1 tsp salt 4 litres cold water Method: Add all ingredients to a large stock pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, reduce to a brisk simmer and cook for 2-3 hours until you have about 2 litres of stock. Strain into a jug or bowl and discard the solids. For the meatballs: 1 jumbo egg 250 g lean minced beef 250 g Italian sausage, very finely chopped (or minced/ground pork) 3 heaped T panko crumbs 3 heaped T finely chopped parsley 3 heaped T finely grated Parmesan 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp coarse salt 1 tsp black pepper A drop or two of olive oil for forming the meatballs For the soup: 3 T extra virgin olive oil 1 large white onion, finely chopped 3 medium carrots, diced 2 celery stalks, diced 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 litres chicken stock, or dissolve 8 sachets of liquid chicken stock in 2 litres water A strip of old Parmesan rind 2 cups finely grated parmesan Salt and black pepper to taste 100 g small pasta such as acini de pepe or orzo 100 g baby spinach leaves (or about 16 basil leaves, torn) More parmesan, finely grated, to serve Method For the meatballs: In a large bowl, beat the egg lightly and add the minced beef, very finely chopped salami or other Italian sausage (or ground pork), panko crumbs, chopped parsley, finely grated parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano or other hard parmesan cheese), dried oregano and garlic, and season with salt and black pepper. Mix the mixture lightly with clean hands. Pour a drop of olive oil into your palm, rub your palms together, take up small amounts (about a teaspoonful) of the mixture and form them into balls. Put them on a plate. The mixture made exactly 40 little meatballs for me. Add olive oil to a heavy frying pan on a moderate heat. Fry the meatballs in batches on all sides, for 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Shake the pan to keep rolling them around. Drain on a plate lined with kitchen paper. For the soup: Chop the onion, carrots and celery and cook gently in olive oil, stirring now and then, for 8 to 10 minutes. Add the chopped garlic, season with salt and black pepper, and cook gently for a minute or two more. Add the chicken stock and parmesan rind to the soup, bring it to a simmer, and cook gently for about 10 minutes. Stir in the 2 cups finely grated parmesan. Add the pasta and cook gently until just tender (al dente). Turn off the heat. Add the baby spinach leaves to wilt in the soup immediately before serving. Or tear basil leaves into small pieces and stir into the soup. Serve in wide bowls (to show off the meatballs and other small bits and pieces) sprinkled with finely grated Parmesan. DM
