Zucchini flowers in batter (with cheese filling). Fried zucchini flowers How to make flowers from zucchini
Zucchini flowers are probably the most romantic summer food. Who has zucchini in the country? Rather collect the bouquet!
In general, there are flowers - this is a trend. Chewing violets, crunching pansies is not even exotic, but the restaurant mainstream. Often, however, these flowers, although beautiful, are devoid of any taste whatsoever. Eat them and you absolutely don't understand why. Then, perhaps, to make sure that yes, you can eat them. But we don't have to eat everything we can eat, right?
None of these thoughts will come to your mind when you taste the flowers of the squash. This is a real pleasure that can be understood not only by sophisticated connoisseurs of the refined, but also by those who prefer potatoes and onions to all delicacies.
The taste of the flowers is clear and simple, but at the same time delicate and light.
In short, to the point.
Sometimes zucchini flowers are sold in the markets, but of course - picking them from your own garden is much more interesting.
Plucking flowers will not necessarily damage future crops. Pick only male flowers, but leave female ones.
Male ones are those with thin legs. Women's - with thick ones.
In order for your zucchini to bear fruit successfully, you need to leave 1 male flower for every 3-4 female flowers. All other male flowers can be safely cut off.
Flowers need to be plucked with legs. Then, during cooking, it will be convenient to hold flowers by these legs.
Having collected a bouquet, we go to the kitchen. Flowers need to be washed very carefully in cold water and let them dry.
Now we start stuffing them.
The flower cup is a handy container that can hold an almost full tablespoon of the filling. It is most convenient to stuff flowers that have not yet fully blossomed. Those who have already suffered such a fate will have to be slightly crushed, filling so that the petals do not stick out in different directions.
The most traditional filling for squash flowers - this is cheese. You can use mozzarella, or you can make a mixture of curd cheese, fresh herbs (dill, cilantro, parsley). Imagine! The filling is required to be tender and creamy - that's all. Beautiful in this role goat cheese.
Having stuffed flowers, you need to dip them in batter. This will make the structure more durable.
How to make batter?
100 g flour;
200 ml of water
1 egg
2 tbsp olive oil;
a pinch of salt
We mix all the components, bring them to a perfectly homogeneous state without lumps. This is our batter.
Meanwhile, heat the saucepan by dropping oil on the bottom. Fry the flowers for 5 minutes.
All is ready!
In July, zucchini bloom profusely in the gardens. Large orange flowers wither, dry and disappear after several days. Unfortunately, not everyone knows that this flower has beneficial and healing properties.
- Flowers from zucchini have long been used to treat fever, or malaria, - says an expert in alternative medicine Ekaterina Fedorova. - True, before picking a flower, they check if there is an ovary of a future fruit in the flower. A tablespoon of flowers was crushed, poured with a glass of boiling water, insisted for 20 minutes. The patient was given the infusion five or six times a day, and the fever passed.
- These are quite rare diseases, but what are the more common ones that can be treated with squash color?
- Allergies are also treated with an infusion of these flowers: a dozen flowers are poured into 0.5 liters of boiling water and insisted for up to two hours. The infusion is drunk three to four times during the day.
And zucchini seeds are used to treat impotence, and fresh juice is advised to drink to women who are in the early stages of pregnancy. The juice also helps with constipation and swelling. The sticky droplets that appear on the zucchini cut heal wounds well, like the resin of conifers. They can also be the first aid for a heart attack. For this, the sticky substance is dried, and, if necessary, put under the tongue instead of validol.
Stuffed zucchini flowers recipe
Original Australian recipe
Ingredients
Filling
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- 1 egg, divided
- 1/2 cup goat cheese
- 1/2 cup ricotta
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- Sea salt
- Black pepper
Batter
- 2/3 cup plain flour, sifted
- 1 1/4 cups cold mineral water
Flowers
- 12 zucchini flowers cut around the base
- Vegetable oil, for deep frying
- Sea salt
Preparation
- To make the filling, roast the pine nuts in a skillet over medium heat for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally until golden brown. Remove from heat and let cool. Connect egg yolk, goat cheese, ricotta, thyme, and a pinch of salt and pepper in a bowl. Add chilled pine nuts, stir, then transfer to a transfer bag. Stuff 1 tablespoon each. mix into each zucchini flower; Do not overfill as the flowers may fall apart.
- Whisk together flour, egg white and mineral water to do thin crust for batter (types of flour can be different, so start with 1 cup of water and add little by little until you have a pleasant liquid consistency). Whisk until combined; Small pieces don't get in the way.
- To prepare the flowers, heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat to 190 ° C. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature; Or the butter is ready when the slice white bread becomes golden in it in 10-15 seconds. Dip the zucchini flowers into the dough, let the excess drip, then deep fry a few pieces at a time for 3-4 minutes until golden brown.
- Remove with a perforated spoon, place on a serving dish and sprinkle sea salt... Serve immediately.
Products for 2 servings
Master class from Jamie Oliver Cooking zucchini: zucchini flowers fried in batter
Cooking zucchini in this case, it is limited to the use of zucchini flowers. So we go to the garden together to choose the right flowers and collect them correctly ...
Its subtleties, as in any business ...
To prepare a dish from flowers, you will need flowers that have not yet fully opened - you can with small fruits.
*** Watch the video for sure - and you will find out how and what flowers should be collected so as not to ruin the entire zucchini bush.
The dish is deep-fried. Flowers can either be bought or collected in the garden.
For filling flowers ...
Ricott season with salt and pepper, add a handful of freshly grated Parmesan, grate lemon zest ...
*** Ricotta
Ricotta (Italian ricotta) - traditional Italian milk product... Ricotta is often called cheese, but this is not formally correct: ricotta is not prepared from milk, but from whey left over from the preparation of mozzarella or other cheeses. Thus, the protein basis of ricotta is not casein, but albumin.
Ricotta is a traditional product of the southern regions of Italy (Lazio, Sicily, Campania, Apulia, Calabria), as well as some northern ones (Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lombardy, Piedmont).
Ricotta is a popular ingredient in many desserts (for which it is often chopped and whipped into a soft mass): cannoli, ricotta and chocolate cakes, salty pies, pastiera napoletana. Ricotta is also used in recipes for hot dishes (in particular, some varieties of lasagna), it is used in baking the traditional Easter bread Pastira.
Finely chop the mint.
Free chili from seeds and membranes inside. Chop very finely.
Grate nutmeg ...
To mix everything.
"It can be used in different ways - you can place small balls on pizza, scrambled eggs or omelet, you can put it on mushrooms, you can fry in olive oil ..."
Prepare flowers ...
- remove the green leaves,
- take out the "pistil stamens",
- drive away insects ... and other living beings ...
- spread the petals and fill the flower.
*** How to do it quickly and easily Jamie will show in the video ... and you will also see Jamie meeting with one creature ...
After the flower is filled, you need to gently squeeze the petals.
*** If ricotta remains, roll up small balls.
*** Jamie will tell you how to make cheese balls to make them delicious and crispy.
Batter - pour wine into the pancake flour to make a thick pancake dough, add a little salt.
*** Jamie will tell and show you how to check the readiness of the batter. Watch the video!
Dip cheese balls and flowers, shaking the bowl of batter so that all flowers are covered with batter on all sides.
Heat oil in a deep fat fryer or in a deep dish until tender -
*** Jamie will tell you how to check if the oil is ready ...
Gently dip the cheese balls and zucchini flowers into the fat.
Bake until crisp.
"It's time to get our kids."
Put on a plate with several layers of paper napkins on it. Salt a little.
*** Jamie also fried a zucchini leaf and a calendula flower (the translator stubbornly calls it velvet).
The flowers are crisp ...
Put on a plate, squeeze out lemon juice... and immediately there!
Jamie cut the flower - he is delighted with what he saw!
"Just a fairy tale!"
Once, in a culinary show, I saw how squash flowers are prepared in batter, but it was not possible to cook such an unusual dish for me. We don't sell squash flowers, and I did not dare to ask my mother-in-law to cut them off, not allowing the harvest to ripen.
Several years passed in this way. Over the years, I managed to explain to my mother-in-law that zucchini should be picked when they are young, with underdeveloped seeds, and she heard me. In the conversation, I mentioned that I saw how flowers are prepared and would also like to try. And a miracle happened - my mother-in-law handed me a whole package of squash flowers! Of course, I immediately rushed to cook them.
For cooking marrow flowers in batter (with cheese filling) prepare necessary products... In this case, I used suluguni cheese, feta or feta cheese is also suitable.
The flowers should be rinsed with water and the pistil removed carefully.
Grate cheese.
Add chopped dill and garlic to the cheese, salt if necessary.
Place the filling inside each flower, about a teaspoon. Squeeze the flower a little so that the filling is well fixed inside.
Stuff all flowers in this way.
Prepare batter from water, flour and salt. You can also add an egg if desired. Dip each flower into the batter from all sides.
Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, put in it the flowers of zucchini in batter (with cheese filling) and fry on all sides. After frying, lay the flowers on napkins to remove excess oil.
For this recipe, flowers are equally suitable not only for zucchini, but also for squash or. Before cooking, they must be carefully rinsed under running water.
Then, just as carefully remove the pistil and stamens.
For the filling, three cheese on a medium grater. Some similar recipes suggest using processed cheese, but it seems to me that more hard varieties... You can take Russian or Dutch, or even, for example, mozzarella, whatever you like the most, the taste of the original dish will depend on it. Gently stuff each bud with cheese and crush the filling with our hands a little, tightening it.
For the batter, beat the egg with a pinch of salt.
Add flour and leftover grated cheese.
We mix. If the batter seems very thick, then it can be diluted with a little milk.
We lower each bud in a batter so that it completely covers the flower.
Then put in a hot frying pan with vegetable oil and fry the stuffed flowers over medium heat on both sides until golden brown.
We serve fried zucchini flowers always hot, it's very tasty!
If you suddenly have batter, do not throw it away. Fry the slices of zucchini or eggplant in it, I assure you that it will turn out to be quite a worthy snack too! If you love cheese, and just aren't afraid to experiment in the kitchen, be sure to prepare squash flowers! Bon Appetit!!!