I’ve always been afraid of squash blossoms. I knew you could cook them–stuff them with cheese and fry them–but somehow that seemed difficult. Plus you have to search inside each flower for bugs and who wants to take a chance that you might miss one? “No thank you,” I used to say to myself. “No squash blossoms for me.”
But then on Saturday at the farmer’s market I’d purchased the obligatory heirloom tomatoes for an heirloom tomato salad when I passed $5 packages of squash blossoms at the stand near the subway stop. They called to me and this time I didn’t run away in fear: I purchased a box and brought them home. And boy am I glad I did, as you will soon learn…
This recipe is a composite of several recipes so I suppose you can say this is a recipe I created myself and if you said that I wouldn’t correct you. It’s super easy and actually super fun. Here’s what you do:
Open your package of squash blossoms and gently open the flowers and look for bugs. If you don’t see any set them aside.
Then take goat cheese–I bought a Coach Farm round (I forget how many ounces but it was just a normal looking round of goat cheese)–and add olive oil, salt, pepper, some parmesan and red chile flakes and mix up with a fork or a whisk until it’s smooth enough to stuff into the squash blossoms, but not so runny that they’ll leak out everywhere. Here’s what mine looked like:
Now’s the fun part. Take a Ziplock bag, put a piping tip in the corner of it and cut the corner off (or, if you don’t have a piping tip, I bet you can just use the bag); fill the bag with the filling and pump about 1 Tbs (or less) of the filling into each squash blossom. Then twist the blossom closed and lay them out until you’ve finished them all.
Now take an egg, beat it in a bowl; and dip each blossom in the egg. Then put flour, salt and pepper in pie plate and roll the egg-dipped blossoms in the flour, shake off. Heat olive oil in a skillet–a solid layer of olive oil–til it’s smoking and really hot and drop the squash blossoms in:
Cook until brown on all sides, then remove to paper towels and sprinkle with salt. And that’s it!
I served it with my heirloom tomato salad and Diana and I both agreed it was an excellent dinner. What made it even more excellent were the biscuits I made as a quasi-dessert. Summer food doesn’t get more summery.
My Lord, that looks good. I’ve never tried these myself, but a local chef did give me a similar recipe for stuffed zucchini blossoms. As a neat little twist, he ties the blossoms closed with a chive after he stuffs them. I don’t know whether you had any trouble with the cheese mixture oozing out, but if you did that might make it hold together better.
Mmm, nothing quite like fried veggies. I feel OK about the cheese and oil simply because it’s a vegetable so that means it good for you.
I cooked these all one summer to figure out what I liked best. I found out I liked the easiest ones best of all.
I prefer no stuffing– shoot me. The batter is just flour, salt and water– sparkling if you like– mixed to the consistency of heavy cream. Oil must be the best EVOO you have.
They are light, crispy and delicious. I have only found one bug in seven years of making these.
I definitely understand your bug paranoia! I’ve seen these fried squash blossom recipes all over the internet and i’m debating actually trying them out one day! I love how we take such pretty things like squash blossoms or zucchini flowers and just fry the hell out of them.
You’ve convinced me: I’m going to deflower my squash. I’ll do anything for a bit of warm goat cheese! Yeah, really….anything!
My father used to always pinch the ends of the zucchini blossoms, which effectively closed them up, trapping any unsuspecting insect inside, so he never ended up getting bitten by bees.
He also used to chop these blossoms up and add them to a basic dough, fry up in olive oil, and make a delicious savory fritter out of them.
I sometimes forgo the egg and dip them in a beer and flour mixture. The beer adds a nice taste to the blossoms.
The idiot that calls herself a chef above…said EVOO? And use the best for frying? Thats a waste of good olive oil.
Get your Rachel Ray watching head out of your ass.
The idiot that calls herself a chef above…said EVOO? And use the best for frying? Thats a waste of good olive oil.
Get your Rachel Ray watching head out of your ass.