Forget the courgettes which nobody likes anyway, it’s the breadcrumbs that this recipe is all about.
Those are magic. They have the ability to transform the blandest vegetables into a feast. They make children eat broccoli. They let you create pasta dishes that cost 5p a plate. They turn a limp green salad into a chef’s table starter.
There can be tonnes of variations on the breadcrumbs theme: add chopped garlic. Squish an anchovy into the Parmesan before adding to the pan. Chop up the hottest birdseye or crumble a dried habanero in. Swap parsley for mint or tarragon or coriander or chives. Add onion powder. Add lemon zest. A little brown sugar. A shaved truffle.
It ain’t necessarily butter either: any oil will work, with the possible exception of essential oils. Lard, drippings, goose fat, shortening, though I’d not tested the last one.
You’ll want to make double or quadruple the amount for later. You’ll want to eat spoonfuls on their own. Heck, you might even make a breadcrumb sandwich or sprinkle them on ice cream (that’s not a joke; though not the crumbs with lard and garlic).
And the best thing is you don’t need fancy pankoes for this. Any leftover bread, not terribly seeded to be sure, can be dried and whizzed in the blender; or whizzed and left to dry on a tray: the order doesn’t matter. Before you know it you’ll cut the bread waste in your home to zero – and that’s what we all want.