Growing up in an Italian home this was a regular item on our menu. We would grow the zucchini, pick the flowers early morning and eat them for lunch and dinner. My mother would also stuff them with shredded mozzarella! Absolutely delicious! But it wasn’t just summer moths we ate it as my mother mastered taking the flowers, sometimes stuffing them and then properly freezing the dish. In dead old winter she would take them out defrost, fry and we would enjoy. Simply fantastic dish.
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I always see recipes for stuffing these for some reason. Fine if you want/must, but I would say try them just battered and fried (plain) first. Been eating them like this forever and they are a 10 out of 10.
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I once had the good fortune to be in Italy when blossoms were in season - I ate them every day in some form - in pasta, on pizza, fried, stuffed. I agree with the reader who said the primary purpose to grow zucchini is for the flowers, as we do now.
I can assure the author that there are Turkish cooks and restaurants who lightly fry the blossoms as her father did.
Really? Unless you grow zucchini yourself, where are these found? Recipes that use ingredients that aren't readily available are too esoteric and precious.
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@Mulberryshoots Try a farmers' market. That's where I get them. Or ask your friends with gardens. Picking the flowers won't stop the overabundance of zucchini, but it can't hurt to ask.
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@Suzanne Fass Thanks! will look out for them!
Just had some stuffed zucchini flowers at a Pintxos bar: Gure Toki, in the Old City of Bilbao. Prepared very much like the recipe in this article. Deeeeliiiiishhhh!
If you pick them fresh from a field or garden, while they are open make sure you check for insects. We also carefully remove the pistil before using. Besides the Italian way of frying them, in Mexican cookery the squash blossom is frequently used in a very tasty quesadilla.
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as I am eating one prepared by my mother-in-law, I would agree. simple is better though they do soak up a lot of oil. drain well.
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I'm glad that someone likes zucchini in some form.
To me they take up garden space and are to be given away to someone who doesn't have a garden, but appreciates them.
Is this limited to flowers of zucchini, or could one try this with pumpkin or other large flowers? Cucumbers, even?
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@reid All squash blossoms are good. I tend to pick only the male flowers so that the females can go on to produce the squash.
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I would stick with your father.
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@Ed Franceschini Agree. That's what I did tonight (although I mixed panko with the cheese, and fried in avocado oil). Perfect crunch, the flavor of the blossoms came through, and unlike alan from mars's m-i-l's, no excess oil soaked in.
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These look and sound so great, but the one and only time I had zucchini flowers -- in Arezzo, Italy - homemade by my sister-in-law, I threw up. I haven't ventured another try since. :(
Picking off the flowers and snacking on them is one of the small pleasures of growing zucchini in the backyard. And they’re so easy to grow, too.
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Why detract from the delicate flowers by cooking them? Stuff a raw flower with fresh ricotta that's been mixed with fresh herbs (chives, oregano and/or sage) and eat them 'crudo'.
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Wow. These recipes and photos are so beautiful and I can’t wait to make them. Stunning.
On an almost unrelated note, I must say though, that every time I click on a recipe link in the NYT the link directs to the Cooking app’s front page, and then I need to search for the recipe...anyone know a solution for this, besides deleting the app?
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Or quesadillas. Briefly sauté the blossoms until wilted, then make a quesadilla with queso Oaxaca or Monterey Jack. This is the best way I know to represent the blossoms, more so than frying.
I always describe them like this: as an oyster is the essence of the sea, zucchini blossoms are the soil and sun. They are one of my favorite things.
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Try flor de calabasa empanadas. Just the squash blossoms and a touch of Mexican cheese wrapped in a masa empanada. The best.
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Today, for a special lunch, I made a frittata by sweating a thinly sliced small spring onion bulb and its greens in butter and olive oil. Off the heat, I arranged two concentric circles of almost two dozen stemmed squash blossoms over the onion. Back on the heat, poured in duck and chicken eggs, very well beaten with heavy cream, S&P. Sprinkled the whole thing with some mild Gruyère-type cheese, more on the eggs than on the blossoms. Into the oven to finish cooking. I served it at room temperature, so it lost its puff, but was still a perfect dish for a summer day.
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@ Suzanne Fass Upper Upper Manhattan
Your use -- strange in my eyes -- of duck and chicken eggs made me think of a greco-latin term for "egg eater". I came up with "abgophage" (or possibly pronounced avgo or avyo) and "ovivorous", respectively.
I do not know if the eggs of reptiles and oviparous mammals (platypus, echidna) are edible.
@ Suzanne Fass Upper Upper Manhattan
Duck eggs mixed with chicken eggs?! Heavens, only swan and ostrich eggs perhaps were needed to round off this concoction.
Mr. Ottolenghi,
Not to cast any aspersions on your wondrous talents in the kitchen, I vote for your father's version. It represents the practice of both my grandmothers (both Italian born), my mother, all my aunts who cook, and me. Perhaps only a few breadcrumbs with the parmigiano so that the cheese does not overwhelm the delicacy of the flowers.
The primary purpose to grow zucchini at all is for the flowers. The zucchini itself is an afterthought and is what is left when you simply cannot eat any more blossoms!
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@ Dee NY NY
"The primary purpose to grow zucchini at all is for the flowers". -- What a wonderful and truly poetic thought! For someone who does not like zucchini along with squash and turnips, their flowers are their redeeming feature.
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It turns out that there are a couple of zucchini varieties that are specifically bred for large, abundant flowers. I have three plants growing now and anticipate the blossoms with growing excitement.
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Thank you, Mr. Ottolenghi, for this wonderful recipe of your father's.
I note with pleasure in the third photo from top the braised eggs where all the white is properly coagulated. These would be only second best to the sunny-side-up fried carefully, to make the white on the top not transparent, the bottom fairly crisp, yet the yolk remaining liquid.
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@Tuvw Xyz
Up eggs are not 'fried' nor crisp if cooked properly.