During my recent trip to Italy, I saw something colorful and interesting in the veggie section of the town's supermarket: vivid orange and green squash blossoms! I asked, "How does anyone except a rabbit or horse eat those??" Chef Riccardo answered my question with a marvelous recipe for Fried Squash Blossom appetizers.
You'll need:
About 20 zucchini blossoms
Olive Oil
a small jar of anchovies
and a thin batter made from:
about a cup of finely milled white flour (00)
about 2/3 cup of carbonated mineral water, very cold
One whole egg
One tablespoon olive oil
a pinch of salt
Beat all ingredients together and keep chilled.
The secret to light and fluffy fried blossoms is the carbonated, chilled water. Once you've blended the batter ingredients, keep that batter cold.
Remove the stems and all tough, green parts from the blossoms.
Open each flower on one side so it can lie flat. Then put one anchovy in the center of each flower and roll them up. Yes, anchovies, I know, I don't usually care for them either, but trust me, they are delicious prepared this way!
Now that you have a series of "squash blossom burritos", you can dip them gently in the chilled batter and fry them on medium heat in olive oil in a frying pan, just a minute or two on each side:
Transfer the fried blossoms onto paper towels to drain, then serve and eat! Absolutely delicious. Thank you, Chef Riccardo!
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| Squash Blossom Appetizers by Chef Riccardo, 2015 |
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We have battered squash blossoms from our garden each summer! We lightly flavour our batter with some spices like turmeric, which also enhances the radiant colour of the flowers. They taste divine, don't they? Although once we ended up accidentally frying a spider which was in the flower :o
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you like fried squash blossoms, too! The spider, hmm, maybe not the best accent, but I think they eat fried spiders in some parts of Asia. I have never tried one, so I won't venture a guess as to the taste! ;-) Thanks for your comment!
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