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“This recipe is inspired by courgettes avec des arachides (French for 'zucchini with peanuts'), a classic dish from the north-central African country Chad,” says chef Bryant Terry of his oven-roasted zucchini recipe, a simple dish dressed up with the addition of collard-peanut pesto. Perfect to bring to any socially-distanced barbecues this summer, it’s just one of many innovative vegan offerings found in Terry’s new cookbook, Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes.
Over the past few years, veganism has moved from a lifestyle choice firmly into the mainstream: in 2019, The Economist reported a quarter of 25 to 34-year-olds were either vegan or vegetarian. Disney World has over 400 plant-based menu options, and Burger King now serves the Impossible Whopper. Vegetable Kingdom, with its recipes heralding everything from peas to summer squashes to spinach, further cements the role of vegetables no longer as just the side dish, but as the main affair, too.
Yet, Vegetable Kingdom also champions a rich variety of global cuisines: Terry, the chef-in-residence at San Francisco’s MoAD, emphasizes ingredients and cooking styles of the African diaspora, whereas his wife, Jidian Terry Koon, does so with a variety of Asian flavors, from Chinese to Vietnamese. Kingdom reflects those culinary cultures, and many more—Terry notes that fennel, a hearty Mediterranean vegetable, sparked the inspiration for this book.
Below, find Terry’s oven-roasted zucchini recipe with collard-peanut pesto—sure to be a healthy, yet delicious, summertime meal staple.
Ingredients
Collard-peanut pesto
2 cups loosely packed stemmed, chopped collard leaves
1/3 cup roasted peanuts
3 tablespoons white miso paste
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus more as needed
1/2 cup olive oil, plus more as needed
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Oven-roasted zucchini
4 medium zucchini (about 1/2 pounds total), cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts
Directions:
Make the pesto: In a food processor, combine the collards, peanuts, miso, and garlic and blend until it forms a chunky paste. While the food processor is running, slowly pour in the olive oil through the feed tube, adding more if needed to reach your desired consistency. Season with salt, pepper, and additional lemon juice to taste. Set aside.
Make the zucchini: Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, toss the zucchini with the olive oil and salt, then spread the zucchini over the baking sheet in one even layer. Roast until the zucchini is brown around the edges, 18 to 20 minutes. To serve, transfer the zucchini to a bowl and give it a few turns of pepper. Next, drop in a few heaping dollops of pesto so that people can scoop as much as they’d like when serving themselves, adding more pesto to the bowl as needed. Pile the peanuts in a small serving bowl and present alongside the zucchini.
For any leftover pesto, pour a thin layer of olive oil over it, cover, and refrigerate for up to a week.
Reprinted with permission from Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry, copyright © 2020. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.