Pumpkin Flowers

I watch the gardening program on the ABC regularly, one of the episodes was about cooking Italian food using fresh produce.  It grabbed my interest more as they showed us about cooking pumpkin flowers with pasta.  I did not know that we could do that, well I have a pumpkin plant growing - self-sown, and it has flowers now and of course a few pumpkins.  I picked some today, I will cook them not with pasta, but I will stuff them with cheeses and herbs.

The Pumpkin Flowers

There are recipes about stuffed zucchini flowers, they are trendy, in fact, I like to cook them too.

This stuffed pumpkin flower is my own recipe.  What you need is fresh ricotta, Parmesan cheese, egg and herbs.  Vegetable oil to fry.  I don't' use batter instead, I am happy enough to use lightly beaten egg white.

Stuffed Pumpkin Flowers

Recipe

Stuffed Pumpkin Flowers

Makes 6

Ingredients:

175 g, Ricotta cheese

1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese

2 eggs yolk

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mixed fresh herbs, thyme, chives  dill, mint and parsley

salt to taste

2 eggs white, a pinch of salt,  slightly beaten for coating

6 freshly picked pumpkin flowers

Oil for deep - frying

Method

Mix together the two kinds of cheese, add in the yolk, salt and mixed chopped herbs to make a soft creamy filling.

Stuffing the pumpkin flowers: 

Scoop a tablespoon cheese mixture, put inside the cavity of the flower to fill up.

Bring the edges together to enclose the filling.

Do the rest until all flowers are stuffed and the cheese mixture is used up.

Frying:

Place the oil in a frying pan to deep fry, put it on the stove to heat up over medium heat

When it is hot enough fry the stuffed pumpkin flowers.   Dip the stuffed pumpkin flowers onto the egg white to coat, then put in the hot oil, fry until golden brown. Take them out, then rest them on absorbent paper to drain the oil.

To serve

I serve with a leafy salad.

It has been raining a lot lately in my area, the grass proliferates, the garden looks so green in my backyard.  The weeds grow wildly, but there is one weed that I love. The dandelion.   I picked some of them, chose the young leaves for a salad.  I dress the young dandelion salad with French vinaigrette dressing.  It is excellent to serve with deep fried food and is delicious to go with the stuffed pumpkin flowers.

Try the dandelion salad, it has a bitter taste, if you like endive or radicchio you love it too.

Happy Cooking

Thank you for visiting my blog

Until Next Time

Susy