The Culprit of Bitter Zucchini

One of our favorite meals is sauteed zucchini, toasted pine nuts, fresh basil, coarsely chopped Uglyripes and pasta (and salt, pepper and olive oil of course). It's lightning-fast to prepare, is eaten slightly warm to room temperature and the leftovers make a killer frittata. However, recently our local market has been selling us zucchini that's pretty darn bitter.

I poked around the web looking for the cause. Apparently, a class of steroids called Cucurbitacins (depicted is Cucurbitacin E) are responsible for making eggplant, cucumbers and various varieties of squash bitter. Produce Pete (who, incidentally, should put up a blog) suggests selecting zucchini that are small and shiny. The larger the fruit the more likely they are to possess these bittering agents.

We here at Dave's Beer are contemplating soaking a split zucchini in brine (akin to the treatment some give Eggplant) to remedy the situation. Anyone ever try this? Leave your experience in the comments. Thanks.