An Unexpected Muffin

Should we judge a book by it's cover? The rational answer to this question has to be no. But literally, when i go to a library, i tend to pick up the books where the cover is appealing, or where the title sounds interesting to me.

This is even more true with cookbooks. A clear theme, a nice picture on it and i will browse thru the pages, sometimes for a very big dissapointment. I do prefer my cookbooks with pictures, but if the pictures takes up more space than the recipe, than i'm suspicious too... I know, i'm a picky girl :-)

Most of the time, the best surprises come from a book you didn't expect to like at first sight. Discovering thru the pages original recipes, or a coherent point of view, something with a "soul" instead of a serie of unrelated recipes put together.

So now i also pick out books randomly on the shelves, to see what's behind that cover. Just like i would expect people to behave with me in real life, not the picking me up on shelves part ;) but not judging me by my "cover".

All this rambling to bring us to a muffin, but maybe not what you expected from a muffin, specially coming out of my oven: it's not sweet but savory, it's pretty healthy and never the less very tasty. It's not what it seems to be, and that is also what's interesting about it .

Muffins with Courgettes and Goat Cheese

For 8 muffins

1 Big Courgette or 2 Medium Ones
100gr of Goat Cheese (preferably a fresh one)
50gr of Emmental or Gruyère Cheese, grated
100gr of Flour
2 Eggs
4 Tablespoon of Milk
1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
2 Tablespoon of Oil (a neutral one, like sunflower)
1 Lemon, zested and 1 Tablespoon of Juice
1 Teaspoon of Cumin
Salt, Pepper

Preheat your oven to 180°C

Wash your courgette, keep its skin on and grate it, but not too small. Before using them in the recipe, press them between your hands, to take the excess water out of them.

In one bowl, mix the flour and the baking powder.

In a bigger bowl, beat the 2 eggs with the milk and the oil. Add the lemon zest, the cumin, salt and pepper.

Now add carefully the flour and baking powder mix. When it's roughly combined, add the courgettes and the Gruyère cheese. Break the goat cheese in little chunks, add them to the mixture, but keep a few bits for after. Finish with the tablespoon of lemon juice.

Grease your muffin tray or use little paper cups, feel them to about 3/4 of the height and sprinkle a bit of goat cheese on top.

Place in the oven for about 30 minutes, they should be a golden color or use a toothpick to check if they're cooked.

Courgettes don't have a strong taste, that's why they go well together with goat cheese, but you could substitute it with smoked salmon for instance, it works very well too.