Please do not let the fact that it is difficult to take a mouth-watering picture of baked zucchini dissuade you from making these the next time you roast a chicken.
Zucchini can be bland and boring but this recipe is anything but. The zucchini wedges take on the flavor of the pan juices and the garlic and, because they roast in the oven for a long time along with the roast chicken, they develop a chewy, crispy exterior and a creamy center that bursts with concentrated zucchini flavor.
1 roaster chicken
3 cups zucchini, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (I cut mine on the bias rather than straight across to create more angles for better roasting)
3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tsp thyme leaves, finely chopped
2 tsps olive oil
1 Tbsp basil (or red shiso), cut into fine strips (chiffonade)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
Salt
Preheat the oven to 350.
Toss the zucchini in a bowl with all of the ingredients except for the Parmesan and basil.
Place in one layer in an oven safe dish, large enough to contain your chicken.
Put the chicken, prepared as you normally would for a roast chicken, on top of the zucchini wedges, shoving as much of the zucchini as possible under the chicken. I rubbed mine inside and out with some salt, paprika and ground bay leaf, drizzled over some olive oil, sprinkled on some chopped thyme leaves and stuffed the rest of the thyme sprigs in the chicken cavity.
Place the dish in the oven and cook until the chciken juices run clear when you stick a fork in between the body of the chicken and the leg joint. For those of you who are more scientific and use a thermometer that is 165 degrees and about an hour and a half for a 3 lb roaster. Do not be tempted to stir or move the zucchini, you want them to sit quietly, absorb the pan juices and concentrate all their zucchini water so as to become little nuggets of flavor.
Remove the pan from the oven. Lift out the chicken and set aside on a board with a foil tent to rest prior to carving.
Using tongs, dently pick up each zucchini piece and place it in the bowl you used earlier. Add the basil chiffonade and the Parmesan and toss lightly to combine. Serve at once.
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