I was sort of gifted with a lot of yellow squash and I wanted to do something interesting and different with them. Often I use my spiral cutter and make spaghetti strings with the yellow squash that kind of cook its self from being marinated. Then I heat it up and it isn’t so squashy and it is stringy instead. Today I thought that I would try shaving the squash instead. But what flavors should I do today?…..For inspiration I was searching the internet for Top Chef recipes, a few other chefs, and award winning chef, restauranteur and cook book author Yotam Ottolenghi recipes. I do Ottolenghi recipes a lot because he is one of the most gifted vegetable chefs in the world. Yotam Ottolenghi does a COLD marinated yellow squash salad with kiwi salsa. I changed it up a little and I thought a spicy apple salsa just when real nice with squash this time of year. I used 3 pounds of yellow squash. So that makes 6-8 servings depending on how big you make the servings. This takes a few hours for the squash to marinate or just do the squash the day before.

Ingredients for around 7 portions

3 lbs yellow squash – ends cut off and sliced very thin like a shave

1 teaspoon fennel seeds – toasted – ground

1/2 teaspoon dark brown sugar

1/2 lemon – juice and zest

6 cloves garlic – ground to paste

4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 cup pecorino romano cheese – grated

2 apples – coarsely grated

3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 red chile – fine chop (I used a Fresno that was spicy)

1/4 cup fresh cilantro – chopped

2 Tablespoons fresh parsley leaves – chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground dry mint (if you have fresh mint use about 2 Tablespoons)

2 Tablespoons fresh basil – chopped or torn

optional 1/2 cup of either dried corn kernels or 1/2 cup toasted salted pepitas

Directions

Put the shaved yellow squash in a gallon ziplock bag. Keep in the refrigerator or set to the side.

Put a small fry pan on medium high heat and add the oil, sugar, garlic, and the toasted and ground fennel seeds. Cook only a minute or two till the garlic is cooked and take off heat. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Mix well. When this is room temperature add it to the bag of shaved squash. Squish it around to distribute. This needs to marinate at least 1/2 a day or overnight.

Make the apple salsa. In a medium bowl mix together the apples, vinegar, ginger, chile, cilantro, mint, parsley, and basil.

To serve – you can serve either cool as a salad or heated up as a side dish. The original recipe adds toasted hazelnuts….For the salad version (cold)……If I had those dried corn kernels I would have added them to this recipe for a little crunch.

This recipe is GREAT cold or hot……I think I actually like it better hot with added pepitas. Below is warmed up with pepitas.

A SPECIAL THANKS!!!! To Yotam Ottolenghi for sharing his amazing recipe so I could come up with what I got here!