Southside CSA

I was at my Italian-American grandmother’s on Thursday and brought the zucchini blossoms that we were treated to from MimoMex. Grandma hadn’t had them since her mother had last made them, almost 20 years ago. Her mother came from northern Italy, up near Milano, where this sort of thing is an early summer treat.

Ingredients:

• Zucchini Blossoms (handful)
• Parsley – 1 tablespoon fresh chopped
• Egg – 1
• Ricotta Cheese – 1 tablespoon
• Parmesan – 1/2 tablespoon
• Flower – 2 tablespoons
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Olive oil (or other vegetable oil) for frying

* Green = from the CSA

Gently wash the Zucchini blossoms & pat dry.

In a bowl mix ricotta, Parmesan (or other hard, flavorful cheese), chopped parsley and a little salt & pepper.

Gently pry open a zucchini blossom and stuff about 1/2 teaspoon of ricotta mixture into the middle, down as far as it will go. Don’t over stuff – it’ll come oozing out when fried.

After stuffing all the blossoms put them to one side.

Crack an egg into a new bowl and rough it up with a fork.

Put the flower in a different bowl and salt and pepper (you can add herbs etc also to this mixture).

Put a liberal amount of vegetable oil in a frying pan (perhaps 1/2 inch high) and heat to medium-hot temperature. The hotter the oil the quicker the blossoms will fry. You want them to fry quickly so the cheese is sealed in but not too hot to burn the blossoms. Pay attention – if the flower & egg becomes burnt in the pan, then replace the oil and heat not quite so much. It’s an experimentation thing.

• Roll one blossom in the egg, making sure it coats the whole blossom (but don’t soak – you don’t want too eggy a blossom).

• Then roll it in the flower (again, liberally coat but don’t soak it on).

• Then add the blossom to the hot oil and fry till crispy.

Repeat with each blossom in that order – don’t egg  all the blossoms and then flower all the blossoms – you want the mixture to be freshly applied with each blossom.

Tip – don’t fry more than 2-3 blossoms at a time, so that you can really keep an eye on them. They should be ready quickly – anywhere between 1-3mins.

Serve immediately with a little white wine.

Filed under: Recipes | Tagged: Fun Fried Things, Savory Ideas, squash blossoms, zucchini |