Photo by Bob Gutowski
Night before last, a friend gave us a bag of beautiful squash blossoms. I know they are edible, and thought I had tried them stuffed and fried somewhere, but wasn’t sure. But I love culinary experiments and The Girl is very patient despite occasional failures.
I almost never follow a recipe, but I love cookbooks?. One of my favorite resources for a conundrum like squash blossoms is Alice Waters’ wonderful Chez Panisse Vegetables. This book is full of great recipes, plus selection, storage and preparation advice for a wide range of veggies.
For squash blossoms, there are a couple recipes, and in true Feed The Girl style, I read through them and then did my own thing. Here’s a rough recipe for what I made:
Ingredients
Fresh squash blossoms
1 egg
corn flour – fine ground
Cheese (I used a wonderful sharp white cheddar from Tasmania)
Thyme
Marjoram
Basil
Sage
Oregano
Olive oil
Steps
1. Gently rinse the squash blossoms, cleaning out any bugs or dirt, and pat them dry.
2. Stuff each with cheese and sprinkle in a little of the herbs.
3. Whip the egg in a bowl, and spread the corn flour and herbs on a plate.
4. Dip each stuffed blossom in the egg and then roll it in the corn flour and herbs
5. Heat a pan with a generous pool of olive oil, until a little flick of water from your fingers sizzles
6. Fry the stuffed, breaded blossoms in the pan, gently turning them to make them brown and crisp
We served the blossoms hot, sprinkled with a little fleur de sel (sea salt flakes) and cracked pepper. They were fabulous.
I’d love to hear how you do with this recipe, especially if you experiment a bit with it. You might try a different cheese, or change the herbs or flour.