Courgettes are in season now! They are low in calories and fat, and actually are mostly made up of water. So today's recipe comes from july issue of "Food and Travel" Magazine. After "Good Food" this is one of my favourite culinary magazines. In Poland we eat a lot of potato pancakes, which consist mostly of grated potatoes, many people were telling me to prepare courgette pancakes. So when I saw the recipe for courgette spicy balls I wanted instantly to try this recipe as it seemed very similar to our polish specialities. They are quite spicy - but I love the addition of chilli powder and red chilli pepper, on top of that it consists of many exotic spices such as coriander, turmeric and ground cumin - so remember about mineral water. It takes some time to prepare the dish, however the final result is very rewarding.

serves 3 , makes 12 balls

  • 700g courgettes
  • 1,5 tsp salt
  • chilli pepper
  • small onion
  • 2 cm piece of ginger
  • small bunch coriander
  • 65g chickpea flour
  • oil for frying

For sauce:

  • medium onion
  • 2cm piece of ginger
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 red chilli pepper
  • 2 tbs sunflower oil
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric
  • 1/8 tsp chilli powder
  • 1,5 tsp ground cumin
  • 1,5 ground coriander
  • 250ml coconut cream
  • can (400g) peeled tomatoes
  • small bunch coriander

Grate the courgettes on largest holes into a large coriander, sprinkle with salt. Toss and leave for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make the sauce. Chop the onion, deseed and chop chilli pepper, peel and grate ginger. Place all these ingredients with 3 tbs cold water into a blender and purée. Heat the oil in the pan, over medium heat, and add the turmeric, chilli powder, cumin and coriander. Add onion purée, lower the heat and fry for around 6 minutes.

Squeeze the courgettes a little so the juice runs into the bowl, add 150ml of juice to the onion purée along with coconut cream, cook on low heat for 20 minutes. Add tomatoes and chopped coriander (discarding stalks). Remove from the heat.

Squeeze courgettes again so that every last drop comes out, otherwise it would be difficult to form the balls. Chop onion, peel and grate ginger, chop finely garlic, deseed and chop chilli pepper, chop coriander(discarding stalks and leaving few leaves for garnish). Add onions, ginger, chilli pepper, garlic, coriander along with chickpea flower and mix well all the ingredients, form into 12 balls.

Heat the oil, fry balls for golden brown-3-4 minutes, over medium heat turning them around., remove excess oil on kitchen towel. Place balls in the sauce, scatter with remaining coriander.