Monday, July 14, 2014

Fried Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms



I look forward to these delicate each summer. In fact I have two zucchini plants at my backyard and they gave me quite a few flowers every 2 days but mostly male flowers. I wish there gave me more female flowers though as I would like to have some zucchini too. So far I saw only 4 zucchini out of the 2 plants.

Anyway I collected quite a few of it and stuffed some of them up. I am not too keen on stuffing it with cheese as it oozed out while I was frying it and it was a mess. Oil spatters everywhere. This time I stuffed it with some meat and dipped it in light batter and deep fried them. The batter coats the flowers so lightly but it still gives a satisfying crunch when you bite into the savory center. We like this version so much better.





Ingredients:

10-12 zucchini/squash blossoms

Ingredients for the filling:

4 oz ground meat – chicken/pork or beef
2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped chives
2 tbsp finely diced carrot
2 tbsp Italian breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste
½ beaten egg


Batter:

2/3 cup flour
1 cup of soda water
¼ tsp salt


1. Put all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until well combined. Set it aside for 10 minutes.
2. Prepare the flowers. Check the inside of the blossoms for insects; remove part of the stems, stamen inside the flower and outer green spiky leaves. Wash and gently pat them dry with a paper towel.
3. Prepare the batter. Whisk the flour, soda water and salt together until you get a smooth batter. Mixture will look frothy, this is normal. Set it aside.
4. In the meantime put the filling mixture into a piping bag. Cut the tip of the piping bag. You can also use a zip log bag too. Gently open up the flower petals, Pipe about a tablespoon (depend on the size of your flowers) of filling into the petal. They will swell up as you fill them. Lightly smoothen up the flowers and close up the top of the petals.
5. Do the same to the rest of the flowers. Set it aside.
6. Heat up some vegetable oil for frying in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Dip each flower one by one into the batter. Hold it over the bowl to let the excess batter drip off.
7. Gently lower the flowers into the oil. Fry the flowers until light brown and the filling is cook.
8. Remove flowers and drain the oil on paper towels. Serve immediately.

5 comments:

PH said...

Gertrude, this is so unique! I have see it on TV but got no chance to try. Can't find these flowers.

Aunty Young(安迪漾) said...

Sounds interesting for me !
Thanks for sharing.

Shereen said...

My boys and I love these beauties too.. Yums! I tend to stuff all kind of cheeses and what not but have never tried with meat. Can't wait for summer but got to cage naughty Charlie first.. Lol!!

Sonia ~ Nasi Lemak Lover said...

Hmm, I know this is good, I tried with pumpkin flowers before. But here hard to find this this flower or even pumpkin flowers.

ICook4Fun said...

Phong Hong, I saw you have some pumpkin plants in your garden. You can get some blossom now :)

Aunty Young, you are welcome.

Shereen, my plants only gave me male flowers. Hope it will give me some squash too.

Sonia, try planting your own zucchini or pumpkin. I know they will grown well in Malaysia climate.