This is one of my favorite gourmet recipes. I usually cook this for entree whenever I have friends coming over for dinner.
Stuffed zucchini flowers
Ingredients for the stuffing: 5 pieces zucchini flowers, cream cheese (which can be replaced by ricotta or mascarpone cheese or any soft cheese), a couple of finely chopped preserved anchovy fillets, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. A spoon or two of breadcrumbs can also be added to the mixture to make all the ingredients stick all together.
For the batter: 1 egg white, 1 whole egg, 60 grams plain white flour, 5 tbsp cold water, pinch of salt
Preparation: 1- Mix together all the stuffing ingredients and blend the ingredients well until smooth. 2- Spoon into the flowers and close flower around the mixture. 3- Make the batter by beating everything together. 4- Dip each stuffed flowers in the batter and deep fry until golden brown.
Please note that in this recipe, we use the “female” zucchini flowers. Female zucchini flowers have more room in the middle of the petals than the male ones, which make them more ideal for stuffing recipes like this.
Zucchini is a vegetable that is similar to what we call “upo” in the Philippines. In countries, like the Philippines, zucchini flowers can be alternated in this recipe with other vegetable flowers. I suggest doing this recipe with “squash (pumpkin) flowers”. It is all about experimenting. That’s what makes cooking very interesting.