Wednesday, June 17, 2009

FRIED ZUCCHINI BLOSSOMS

Adapted from Gourmet, paying attention to comments on Epicurious as well as Karen Montgomery’s suggestions. This were a bit of work but sinfully good. Try for a dinner party; serve to your guests as they come out. I did not try Karen’s suggestion of a simple tomato sauce; that would have been a good balance.

To prepare blossoms: Leave the stems on – you can eat them and they make good handles. Purists use only males (I couldn’t tell you the difference) but whatever the gender, use kitchen shears to remove whatevers sticking up inside. Then, if you have a pastry bag, fill that with your herbed ricotta and use it to stuff the blossom.

zucchini blossoms – 2 to 3 per person, up to 12 for this amount of batter
about 1 cup ricotta
several tablespoons MIXED HERB PESTO or BASIL PESTO or chopped herbs
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dark, good beer
canola or peanut oil
parmesan cheese and/or tomato sauce

Whisk flour into beer or soda to make batter.
Mix ricotta with pesto or herbs. Stuff cheese into blossom. If you have some very small blossoms, you can skip the stuffing.
Heat 1 inch of oil in a deep saucepan, to 375°F .
Dip blossoms in batter to thinly coat, just before placing in oil. Don’t overfill the pan. Fry until bottom turns golden brown, then turn over. About one minute per side.
Drain on paper towels and season with salt.

Serve as soon as they are cool enough to eat, with a sprinkling of parm or tomato sauce or on their own.

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