Sformato di zucchine al forno

The Italian language and I have a long history, one that goes all the way back to 2005, when I was a mere 16 years old. I enthusiastically enrolled in my first ever course sophomore year, feeling well-prepared thanks to my experience studying Spanish. I was pumped, in that language-nerd sort of way: I loved the idea of accessing a new culture, place, and people via a foreign language, and I was especially pleased to study one that I could put to real use. Despite my roots and heritage, I didn’t speak any Italian beyond “ciao,” meaning I couldn’t communicate with the many relatives I had met on my first ever trip to Italy in 2003. This, perhaps, was the biggest motivator in my Italian language quest: the hope that the next time I saw my many cousins, aunts, and uncles, I’d be able to communicate in full (and maybe even correct) sentences.

First impressions: not long after picking up Italian, I realized it was, well, a lot more fun than Spanish. Its cadence and melody were far more musical, for starters. It was also sillier, more festive almost, its words rife with double consonants which needed to be pronounced in a slightly different way, the sound of said letter being carried out a second longer. It was, I found, a language full of fun words that were not easily translated, like spaghettata (a spaghetti meal eaten in good company and menefreghista (a person who doesn’t care about anything). There were the suffixes, too: adding “ino/a” to the end of a word transformed it into its diminuitive form (pochino meant a little bit) while putting “-one/ona” did the opposite, rendering the word “bigger” (mangione, for example, to mean a big eater). Even cooler: placing an “S” in front of a word automatically negated its meaning. I discovered for example that while fortuna meant luck, sfortuna meant bad luck; while vantaggio meant advantange, svantaggio meant disadvantage. The word formato meant formed, while sformato meant unformed, or misshapen. Which in an unlikely, round-about sort of way segues to today’s recipe for sformato di zucchine.

(Finally! An intersection between Italian grammar and cooking, two of my favorite things!)

So! I would theorize that the strange moniker here derives from the fact that 1.) a good sformato will puff in the oven and then gently collapse, giving it a more rustic look rather than a tidy, uniform one and 2.) they consist of a hodge-podge of ingredients, whatever vegetables, cheeses, or meats you have on hand. While I can’t tell you the story behind the name with any certainty, I can tell you this with utmost convinction: you must make this sformato, ASAP.

Here we have a pan of delighful contrasts: there’s fluffy, airy ricotta and crisp, crunchy breadcrumbs, mild-mannered zucchine and sharp Parmesan, and if you’re like me, a healthy dose of freshly ground black pepper to add a bit of heat. The zucchini is grated and mixed into the sformato and also thinly sliced and laid on top, thus packing a 1-2 zucchini punch. There’s melty, pleasantly stringy mozzarella, to keep things interesting, and to up the cheese quotient (can you ever have too much cheese?) This sformato is straightforward, uncomplicated, weeknight-fare, a hearty main for anyone else out there who doesn’t eat much meat. Bonus: just when you thought your summer garden would never stop churning out zucchini, you’re probably at your last batch. Send it off with style and whip us this sformato, content in the knowledge that you also just learned a little bit about the fascinating world of Italian grammar (and you just thought you were getting a recipe!)

A couple of notes: You can play around with the cheeses here. For example, you could sub Pecorino for the Parmesan (reducing the salt a bit). Feta, goat cheese, or scamorza might be nice in the middle layer. I would imagine summer squash can be subbed for the zucchini here. That’s about it!

Looking for other zucchini-centric recipes? Click here

SFORMATO DI ZUCCHINE AL FORNO

Serves 6.

Ingredients:
2 eggs, beaten
5 medium zucchini
5 tablespoons (50 grams) breadcrumbs, plus about 3 extra tablespoons for pan and topping
1 ounce (30 grams) Parmesan, freshly grated, plus about 2 extra tablespoons for topping
1 cup (250 grams) ricotta, well-drained
1 teaspoon salt
2 ounces (56 grams) mozzarella, freshly grated
Black pepper

Olive oil
Salt

Directions:
1.) Cut one of the zucchini into very thin rounds (you can use a mandoline for this, if you wish). Grate the remaining 4 zucchini with a cheese grater, using the largest grate available. Using a a clean kitchen towel or paper towels, squeeze as much water as possible out of the grated zucchini. When this is done, add the grated zucchini to a bowl and add the eggs, salt, Parmesa, ricotta, and breadcrumbs. Mix everything together with a large wooden spoon.

2.) Next, take a 24x24 cm baking dish and grease it with a little olive oil. Add a tablespoon or two of extra breadcrumbs, and tilt the pan until the bottom is well covered. Pour half of the zucchini mixture into the pan. Smooth out the top of with a spoon.

3.) Sprinkle the mozzarella over the zucchini mixture, then cover with the remaining half. Decorate the top the zucchini rounds.

4.) Mix about 2 tablespoons of Parmesan and 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs in a small bowl, and sprinkle them on top of the sformato. Bake for 30-35 minutes until set,, then set the oven to broil. Bake the sformato for a few minutes more until the top becomes crisp and golden. Remove the sformato from the oven, let it cool slighly, then dig in.