Mr. Welcome and I are broke. So we decided to live off the fat of the land. I just found out you could eat zucchini flowers!
First you have to take off those little leaves there (called “teeth” in French), but you can leave the stem. You trim the very top off and you wash.
This is what a plate of prepared flowers look like:
There are male flowers and female flowers. The female ones are tailed by a zucchini and the male ones stand there and do nothing.
No actually, they just hang out on the end of a stalk and look nice. Those are the ones you eat.
Once you trim them, you can make a batter with egg, flour and milk. I used chick pea flour since I’m intolerant to gluten. That’s what Indians use to make pakooras so it’s clearly a good choice for a deep-fried vegetable.
I beat one egg (you’ll want to double this recipe if there are more than 8 fleurs).
Add 1/3 cup of flour (confession – I don’t really measure, but I checked the amount for your benefit) and mix it with the egg to remove the lumps.
Add one tablespoon of milk and mix, then add a second tablespoon so that it’s slightly more liquid than toothpaste. (If it’s too liquidy, it won’t adhere to the fleur and it won’t taste as good). Although … you may need to add a third tablespoon of milk after you start dipping the flowers if you find that it’s too thick. (I’m all about flexibility in cooking, hm?)
Dip them in the batter
and fry (almost deep fry) them. Make sure that oil is super hot! It should be making lots of gurgling noise, and if you drop a bit of batter in it, the batter should float and sizzle in the oil.
I used olive oil to fry them and the first batch was too hot and it got burnt quickly. The second batch was not hot enough and it absorbed too much oil. The third batch was just right. Keep an eye on them to know when to turn them over.
Like about now – these are ready to turn over and are almost done. Just a little darker …
And here they are! Oh, and I sprinkled a bit of sea salt over the top. yum yum!
* This post originally appeared in my former blog, Perfect Welcome, and my contain some discrepancies in names or comments.
- 6-8 zucchini flowers
- ⅓ cup wheat or chick pea flour
- 1 egg
- 2 T milk
- sea salt
- oil for deep frying
- Remove the teeth from the flowers, then cut the very top off to make it look tidy.
- Mix the egg with the flour, then add one tablespoon of milk at a time.
- Heat the oil until it sizzles when you drop a bit of batter in it. If it's hot enough, the batter will float.
- Dip the flowers in the batter and put them in the oil to deep fry.
- Check them constantly and when they are brown on one side, turn them over to the other. If they brown too quickly, turn the heat down.
- When brown on both sides, remove them with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate with 2 paper towels to soak the grease.
- Sprinkle them with sea salt and eat them piping hot.
Seeds are a marvel… how could all that information be stored inside a tiny seed??? Our house wonders about that often.
Beautiful, and nothing broke about this, it's all RICHNESs!!
Thank you for a slice of your life.
Beautiful abundance. Enjoy the fat of the land.
wow… you are very creative and smart. that was a delicious meal and I bet very healthy too.
I enjoy your touches of humor! The zucchini flowers look yummy! (If I attempted that recipe, they would not look as tempting. Guaranteed.)
Your garden is amazing. I'm so jealous.
Love the last line. There is a lot to marvel at in life.
Hello, I'm from the Lady Bloggers Tea Party. What a lovely blog you have! This post is a beautiful reminder of the true abundance that is all around us. Keep up the good work!