This past week I was in Osher Ad, one of Jerusalem’s amazingly named supermarkets, Osher Ad means endless bliss when I came across these.Yellow zukes. Arent they gorgeous? I knw they have them all the time in Fairway but here in Israel they are as exquisitely unusual as truffels or morrels.

For some reason our zucchinis are like the old joke about the model T. They come in every color of the rainbow provided that it is pale green so finding these was a real treat.

Sucker that I am I bought them-no, they weren’t outrageously expensive though I suspect I would have payed a ridiculous price.

And then inspiration struck Nothing like having a squash for your muse

. Why not turn them into a Quajado?.

Now what the heck is that? A symphony? A space creature?

For the unitiated-those folks not fortunate enought to have a Sephardic sister in law a Quajado is an egg, cheese vegetable casserole that is actually emblematic of Sephardic cuisine.

In his Encyclopedia of Jewish Food Gil Marks states that the inquisitors imprisoned people who prepared this dish because it was a sign that they were Jewish.

That is quite a history.

We are a stiffed necked people, us Jews. We live through inquisitions and missiles and of course we stuck to our Quajado taking it to our lands of exile. My sister in laws forebears ate Quajado in Turkey and then brought the recipe to the US.

Though you can eat Quajado all year long it’s especially popular at Pessach though I can’t see any connection between it and the festival except that a Quajado doesn’t contain Hametz.

., ..

So here’s a recipe I cobbled together combining my sister in law’s instructions with Gil Marks’s variation. By the way, you aren’t hallucinating. The zukes in the photo are green . This was the second Quajado I made and by that time my yellow zukes were gone so I used the green ones. It came out just as good and my kids ate it! Yay!

So here’s the recipe.

Saute a medium sized onion in one tablespoon of olive oil until soft

In a separate bowl beat 6 eggs. You can use a fork. Quajado is very low tech

Grate 6 cups of zucchini and squeeze out excess moisture. Tali of morequicheplease.com recommends wrapping the grated vegies into a kitchen towel and then squeezing out.

You can substitute with a bag of Bodek frozen spinach and squeeze the moisture out of that. I wanted to try that but my local supermarket didn’t have any Bodek frozen spinach. It can be very touch and go with the ingredients around here.

Combine zukes, sauted onions and eggs with cheeses.

I used 1 cup of tsfatit (in the US substitute creamy feta) and one cup grated yellow cheese (you can use cheddar, Muenster or mozarella and low fat is fine).

Add salt and black pepper to taste. If you’re using feta skip the salt.

Add two cubes of frozen parsley or 2 tablespoons of fresh

Combine everything and fold into oiled 9 inch square baking dish or 9 by 11 tray.

Bake until set. About an hour.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yummy and kosher for Pesach. Have a cyberbite… I wish I could install a free taste feature. I bet that technology is on it’s way. Doesn’t it sound cool Quajado. Also a great word to know for scrabble. Enjoy