Zucchini blossoms only appear in the mid to late summer when farmers and gardeners begin to run out of ways to get rid of the myriad numbers of squashes that appear and grow larger and larger by the hour. The alternative is to nip the produce in the bud so to speak and lovely little packets of bright yellow blossoms make their way to the farm stand or green market. They are beautiful to look at, but even better to eat. The problem is that they are messy and time consuming to prepare and disappear too quickly once brought to the table.
We got a particularly nice bunch at the green market on Sunday and I was determined to fix them for dinner. I had made some ricotta (see post, May 19, 2014) that I had planned to serve with some grilled peaches, but since it is the perfect filling for stuffed blossoms I changed gears. I combined 1 cup of the ricotta with the zest of 1 lemon, a teaspoon of chopped basil, about ¼ cup of grated Parmigiano, and salt and pepper. I had Steve help as it was impossible for me to hold the blossoms open and neatly spoon the cheese mixture into the center. I held open while he carefully spooned about a teaspoonful into the heart. I twisted the petals closed and laid the filled blossoms out in a row while I made the batter. (To be perfectly honest if I had some packaged tempura batter in the pantry I would have used it.)
I combined about 1½ cups of all-purpose flour with a teaspoon or so of salt. I gently stirred in about 1½ cups of seltzer water. You don’t want to stir to aggressively as you want the batter to have some fizz left.
I heated about 1 inch of canola oil – you could use olive oil – in my favorite Scanpan sautoir pan and when it was hot, working with one piece at a time, I quickly dipped the stuffed blossoms into the batter, allowing most to drip off and gently placed them into the hot oil. I used tongs to carefully turn the blossoms as they turned golden brown and crisp. It only took a couple of minutes for them to cook.
I drained them on a double layer of paper towel and served them sprinkled with sea salt and drizzled with lemon —- all my hard work was gone in a couple of minutes.
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