Spanish Secrets: The Incredible Marrow
If someone gives you a huge marrow, what do you do with it? For an unexpected answer read Craig Briggs's latest delicious despatch from Galicia.
Last week we were invited to some English friends for an evening meal, after the introductory greetings our hostess Terri invited us through to the kitchen where laid on the work top were two large marrows,
"Here"
She said, thrusting one of these huge green vegetable's into the arms of my wife Melanie,
"This is a gift, from a neighbour, and here"
Unhooking a bulging carrier bag hung on a cupboard door handle stuffed full of green beans and handing them once more to Melanie, I reflected for a while on what an excellent start to the evening and also what on earth we were going to do with these vegetables.
The following day we consulted our Delia cook book for ideas on how best to utilise our magnificent marrow, surprisingly there was only one solitary recipe in the entire book.
The page started by giving some general advice on marrows the most striking being with regard to weight, which stated that anything over 700g (which represents about 25oz) is best fed to the compost heap.
Guessing weights is not one of my strong points but one thing was for sure, this majestic green monster lying silent but proud on our kitchen work top was most certainly more than 700g.
Out came the kitchen scales and on went the marrow, the needle finally coming to rest at 2 kilos 612g (92oz).
Now what?
One thing we have noticed about this part of Galicia is an obsession with over cooking their vegetables to the extent that if I were blindfolded and then asked to taste all Galician vegetables, I'm quite sure that I wouldn't be able to guess the identity of any of them. With this in mind Melanie decided to see if our neighbour Melie could use the marrow.
Later that day having blanched and frozen enough of the green beans to last us until this time next year, Melanie walked down to Melie's armed with the marrow and half a carrier bag of green beans.
The expression of sheer delight on Melie's face at the sight of this green monster marrow was incredible and even better from our point of view, was that in exchange for this unwanted gift Melie gave us half a dozen freshly laid eggs.
What an incredible marrow!
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