Time to gild the zucchini

ALL I was hoping for at lunch in the Nice-Cote d’Azur airport was something slightly better than the chicken or “beef” Air France would undoubtedly be shoveling out. What I got was a good table with a view of the sea (and runway), an even better rosé and the best idea for late summer cooking.

It landed in the form of a clafouti made not with cherries but with cherry tomatoes. The restaurant, Le Badiane, had converted the dessert classic into a first course, with julienned bits of saucisson and sun-dried tomatoes in a creamy custard scented with rosemary and topped with small, juice-oozing cherry tomatoes. Even slightly overcooked, it was sensational.

And it made me think of how many other sweet ideas could be turned savory at a time of year when even the most sublime vegetables are starting to taste a little too familiar no matter what clever cooking techniques you put them through. Rather than a cherry cobbler, why not a spicy one made with corn? Instead of a peach crisp, why not a cheesy one with zucchini?

Summer, of course, always brings out the inner Carême in American cooks. For pastry-chef wannabes, corn pudding is an old standard, tomato tarts are modern staples. But the French are particularly inspirational with their gâteaux. Olive cakes turn up all over Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon, particularly at aperitif time. Walk into any party where Champagne is being poured, and you will usually be offered a wedge.

These cakes often include lardons but can also be made with vegetables, particularly zucchini. Cheese, olive oil, milk and eggs give the loaf-shaped cakes a spongy richness. Small squares can be hors d’oeuvres; a thick slice is almost lunch.

A French friend gave me her aunt’s recipe for a basic olive cake, loaded with half a pound of sliced green olives and a quarter of a pound each of lardons and grated Gruyère. She also makes it with artichoke hearts instead of olives, rounding out the flavor with lemon juice, pine nuts and parsley.

Another of her variations includes fennel, dill seeds and a little pastis.

Other standard French recipes substitute wine or vermouth for the milk, or diced ham for the lardons. Always, the quality of the olives is key. Lucques olives are traditional in Languedoc, Nyons in Provence, but other French green olives or even the Greek ones work well. Just don’t use those pimento-stuffed ones from the supermarket; they’re fine in a martini but taste mostly like green salt in a savory cake.

The clafouti came without a recipe, but it was surprisingly easy to replicate by just omitting the sugar and reducing the flour in the usual batter poured over cherries or other fruit. Eggs, milk, melted butter, a little flour, chopped fresh rosemary and salt and pepper can all be whizzed with a blender to make a smooth liquid to cover the strips of saucisson and sun-dried tomatoes in small gratin dishes. The batter puffs slightly as it bakes around the cherry tomatoes, which should be the smallest you can find.

You could serve this as a first course, as a light lunch or especially for brunch, with a crisp white wine or a super-summery rosé. It’s best hot but quite respectable at room temperature.

Like all savory transformations of dessert techniques, the clafouti has a hide-in-plain-sight aspect: It’s so obvious it’s surprising. Beyond the wow factor, though, the whole concept is a way of making more of the best of what late summer brings.

For other vegetable-dessert hybrids, the topping can transform a side dish. You could just cream corn with poblanos and squash and ladle the whole combination alongside grilled fish, but if you add a flaky biscuit dough lightened with cream, you bake up something much more substantial, not to mention dramatic.

Stewed zucchini and tomatoes seasoned with basil and garlic are another summer predictability -- until they are covered in a crisp topping with Parmigiano-Reggiano and lots of butter with a little flour.

A cynic might say vegetable crisps and cobblers are just rarefied casseroles, but these are two cases where nomenclature upgrades them to business class. Which, as it happens, is just what eating that clafouti as insurance against dismal coach fodder mysteriously did for me.

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food@latimes.com

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Lardon and olive cake

Total time: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Servings: 10 to 12

Note: Adapted from Marie Joseph de Jessé. Slab bacon is available at Gelson’s and Whole Foods markets or by special order from Bristol Farms markets or Bob’s Market in Santa Monica.

Butter for greasing the baking pan

4 ounces slab bacon, cut into lardons (1-inch-by-3/8-inch-by-3/8-inch rectangles)

1 ½ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

Generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper

3 ounces whole milk

½ cup olive oil

3 large eggs

8 ounces green olives, pitted and sliced

4 ounces grated Gruyère, about 1 cup

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

2. Cook the lardons in a small heavy-bottomed sauté pan over medium-high heat to render the fat. Drain on paper towels.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and black pepper. In a measuring cup, combine the milk, olive oil and eggs and mix well.

4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet mixture. Mix well. Fold in the lardons, olives and Gruyère.

5. Scrape into the prepared pan. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Serve at room temperature or slightly warmed.

Each of 12 servings: 243 calories; 8 grams protein; 13 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 18 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 67 mg. cholesterol; 651 mg. sodium.

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Cherry tomato clafouti

Total time: 35 minutes

Servings: 6

Note: Saucisson are small, dried sausages; available at Nicole’s Gourmet Foods in South Pasadena, the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills and Surfas in Culver City.

Butter for greasing baking dishes

6 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, cut into julienne

6 thin slices saucisson, cut into julienne

48 cherry tomatoes

1 cup milk

3 eggs

3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

¼ cup flour, sifted

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter 6 (5-inch-by-1-inch) gratin dishes. Divide the sun-dried tomatoes and saucisson slivers among them. Arrange the cherry tomatoes in the dishes.

2. In a blender jar, combine the milk, eggs, melted butter, salt, pepper, rosemary and flour and process until smooth. Divide the mixture among the prepared pans, pouring about one-third cup in each dish and half-covering the tomatoes.

3. Bake until set, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Each serving: 187 calories; 8 grams protein; 12 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 12 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 131 mg. cholesterol; 261 mg. sodium.

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Zucchini crumble

Total time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Servings: 6 to 8

4 medium zucchini, trimmed, quartered lengthwise and sliced into 3/8-inch pieces

6 plum tomatoes, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup coarsely chopped fresh basil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

2/3 cup flour

1/3 cup pine nuts

½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

½ cup butter, cut into thin slices

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the zucchini, tomatoes, garlic and basil and mix well. Season with 1 1/4 teaspoons salt and one-fourth teaspoon pepper and mix in the chile flakes. Adjust seasoning to taste. Spread into a 9-inch square baking dish.

2. Wipe the bowl dry and add the flour, pine nuts and cheese. Using your fingertips, rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs and starts to clump. Crumble evenly over the zucchini mixture.

3. Bake 1 hour, until the topping is crisp and the vegetables are stewed.

Each of 8 servings: 187 calories; 8 grams protein; 12 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 12 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 131 mg. cholesterol; 261 mg. sodium.

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Bonus recipe

Go to latimes.com/food for another savory-as-sweet recipe: poblano-corn cobbler.