Zucchini with blossoms attached: Things to do with

[Pontormo]

I have just half a dozen small zucchini with rather small blossoms attached that I need to cook today before the blossoms lose their freshness.

Elizabeth Schneider provides two suggestions, although I do not own a microwave (yes, that's right), the tool she finds most practical for keeping everything intact.

I have ricotta, I have bread to crumb, herbs, etc. Getting surprisingly sick of anchovies these days, but am open to whatever you've got.

N.B. I conducted several searches before I posted this new thread. Should some of you have links to previous discussions, do share.

[russ parsons]

personally, for stuffing, i prefer the male flowers that don't have the fruit attached. it seems by the time the squash is cooked through, the flowers are dead. with the female flowers, i like to chop them, cook them briefly with some long-cooked onions and a little mexican crema and then use them to stuff a quesadilla, with a little jack or something.

[vinelady]

ricotta and bronze fennel with some of the fronds; tempura and fry.

[mrbigjas]

herb up that ricotta, stuff it in the flowers, put them in a small gratin dish on top of some tomato sauce, and bake in a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes, just enough to heat it all through. i make this all the time when i get these things, and it's delicious.

[sadistick]

If I ever stuff zuc flowers, which I seldom do, I will almost always stuff with a fava bean paste (fava beans, roasted garlic, sauteed onions deglazed with white wine, evoo, and lil bit of lemon juice) sometimes adding some cheese.

Typically we fry some baby shallots and spring garlic in evoo then add herb butter and flowers - deglaze with white wine and fry on high till golden.

Eat as is or puree in to a paste and have on good bread.

[Adam Balic]

OK it isn't the mot exciting dish ever, but a frittata with some nice fresh curdy cheese is an excellent way of preserving the favour and in your case, stretch the filling.

[Alex]

A picture of a Stuffed Zucchini Blossom from last year's Heartland Gathering

The story behind it, with recipe

[gus_tatory]

Pontormo--

this person's gorgeous blog (i don't know him/her: disclosure) has a nice recipe for zucchini blossoms.

zucchini blossoms... clicky...

what they call "seltzer" in the recipe, i am 99% sure we (North Americans)call "club soda" or soda water... enjoy!

[moosnsqrl]

Edited to move this to The Heartland - I started looking at the zucchini blossom phots, then on to the others from last year's gathering and forgot I was on the Cooking forum. Sorry.

Edited July 25, 2006 by moosnsqrl (log)

[Pontormo]

Thank you, all. Actually, I've been cooking what Russ refers to as the male flowers, I gather, for quite some time. My preference is for very simple preparations: battered and fried until lightly golden, eaten as is, especially when stuffed, or upon occasion, slipped into a thin sandwich with a slice of ham...maybe a little melted mozzarella, too.

What I was most interested in was the aesthetic virtue of keeping the tiny blossoms attached to the small bodies of the squash. I thought of the possibility of cooking a soupy pilaf with tomatoes in a shallow pan and then nesting the little thingies securely in the middle and covering them with a lid. I may try that some day...basically the same principle as Mr. BJ's gratin which also came to mind.

However, I was craving the crisp batter on the flowers. It had been a year since my last batch. So I found one internet source (Colivita) that suggested slicing the zucchini just to the base of the blossom, then dipping them in the batter...sort of the way small eggplant are split and stuffed in Indian dishes before being stewed in rich sauces.

I tried that. Problem was that the squash really did need at least a bit of a steam bath first (would the blossoms wilt and be impossible to stuff afterwards?). When zucchini is deep-fried for tempera, the batter coats the inner flesh and it softens more than mine did. By the time the flowers were done, the bodies were still rather crisp, the skin slick and batter-free.

[Pontormo]

P.S. Beautiful plate, Adam. I see there's something more appealing about squash blossoms in eggs than in risotto, at least, in light of my experience of the latter which I found disappointingly bland.