Fiori di Zucca

As I was walking through my lovely Whole Foods Market the other day I happened upon some beautiful little zucchini flowers. They were a beautiful orange color, with bright green stems (Orange & Green... Go Miami!!!) and I just couldn't pass them up.
I'd never made stuffed zucchini flowers but had eaten them at a few different Italian restaurants and decided to find a recipe and give it a go.

This is the recipe I found

Learn more about zucchini and zucchini flowers here

As I began to prepare these beautiful little guys, I sort of stumbled my way through the recipe and used it more as a vague reference than a strict guide. (I didn't plan well and hardly had any of the ingredients called for in the recipe, so I improvised.)

I began with gently rinsing the flowers and setting them on a piece of paper towel (I had 8 flowers)

I then mixed the filling in a smallish bowl:
3/4c goat cheese crumbles
1/4c parmegiano reggiano grated
6 sun dried tomato slices, chopped
1 egg
salt
pepper
about 10 leaves of basil chopped
about 1 tbsp fresh oregano leaves chopped
about 3 tbsp olive oil

I gently stuffed the flowers and sort of pressed the tops of the flower petals together using the filling as "glue." Once all of the flowers were stuffed, I stuck them in the freezer for 10 min to help the filling set.

While the flowers were chilling, I made a wet & dry batter combo for the frying process. To do this I combined about 1c water, 1/2c milk and 2 eggs in a small bowl and in another small bowl I mixed 1 1/2c flower, 3/4c corn meal, salt and pepper.

I then took out a medium frying pan with fairly tall sides and filled it with 1/2 inch of olive oil and put it over high heat.

I dipped the flowers one by one in the flower mixture, then into the egg, then back in the flower. Once they were all dipped and breaded, I laid them very carefully into the oil (be careful doing this!!)
I flipped them once they were golden brown on the bottom and removed them when each side was the same beautiful and golden color. Once removed from the oil, I placed them on a few paper towels to drain. I was a little worried that the stuffing would ooze out of the flowers while frying but for some reason it stayed in nicely... I have no clue why, but for whatever reason, it worked!

These were delicious! I made them as a side dish to scallops (in a white wine & garlic sauce) but they would also be perfect on top of a light salad or as an appetizer.

Next time I try these, I am going to follow the recipe that I posted from epicurious.com. I think my batter was a bit too heavy for the delicate flowers, and the epicurious recipe is definitely more authentic and probably the "correct" way to make these beautiful little treats.... I'm not trying to offend any Italian Nonnas :)

Husband Rating: 10 :) Winner. Winner. Chicken Dinner :)