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08 January 2012

Beer Battered ZUCCHINI Flower Power

Our inner city garden is pretty much dominated by the zucchini plants at the moment, so expect to see a few recipes coming up to use our little (and big) friends. We’ve had a spurt of very hot days and lots of rain the past few weeks in Melbourne so the vegie patch is just going mental. I’d only ever had zucchini flowers a few times eating out and thought of them as quite a delicacy, I can’t  believe how easy peasy it is to stuff them and fry up a quick batch of these little beauties! They are a great starter for a dinner party or lunch and can be prestuffed and popped in the fridge until just before you need to fry and serve (which takes seconds). If you are not growing any zucchini but looking to buy them go and ask in your local green grocer as I saw them the other day at the market and they were super cheap. Lastly, if you can pick them with the little baby zucchini’s attached (don’t worry if they detach from flower) as my 2 year old loved these fried up along with the flowers (“Green chips!” she squealed with delight)

Prep time: approx. 15 min. cooking time: about 10 min

Kitchen stuff needed: a grater. Wooden spoon, mixing bowl, small shallow frying pan, a freezer bag, scissors, kitchen paper


Ingredients from the garden:
6 x Zucchini flowers (and attached baby zucchini if possible)
10 x big basil leaves
3 x mini capsicum (or use sweet baby chillis sparingly)
1 x lemon (thanks Sonia!)

Other Ingredients
200gm x ricotta cheese
2/3 cup x plain flour
1 tbsps. x olive oil
1 x eggwhite
150ml x light beer
S & P to taste

Oil for frying (I used veg)

Let’s do it:
1.Very gently reach into zucchini flower and pull out stamin. Give a quick gentle rinse if needed. Set aside to rest

2. Chop finely basil, baby capsicum, and zest of one lemon and mix with ricotta.
3. Cut bottom corner carefully off freezer bag and put ricotta mix into it.

4. Gently pipe the filling into each zucchini flower and don’t over fill (or it will ooze out when frying). Pop in fridge while you make your batter.
5. Put oil into small frypan and fill to 1/3 on a medium heat.
6. For batter, place flour and 1/2 tsp. salt in a bowl. Add oil and beer then whisk until a smooth batter forms.
7. In another bowl, whisk eggwhite until soft peaks form then gently fold into batter.

8. Test your oil is hot enough by popping a wooden spoon in it, if you get small bubbles straight away you should be good to go.
10. If you can tie/twist the end of your zucchini flowers together, pop in batter and coat well, then straight into hot oil. Fry until golden on both sides and remove and place on kitchen paper. Continue until all cooked. Let drain well to remove as much fat as possible and cool down.


Serve with some sea salt and lemon wedges. Enjoy with an ice-cold organic beer outside. And smile. You just made something you never thought you would ;)

Soundtrack for Zucchini Flower Power: Hombre Lobo - 12 Songs of Desire by Eels

2 comments:

  1. Another beautiful dish made by a beautiful chef! Love it! ♥

    ReplyDelete
  2. Loving it! Will have to save for summer here.

    ReplyDelete