Frittelle Di Fiori Di Zucca (Zucchini's Flowers Fritter)

Hi everyone!

This is a dish that can be a perfect appetizer or as second course. It is very tasty and simple and quick to do!

I'm Stefania from Italy, by the way. Welcome to my kitchen!

Let's get started! For this recipe you will need:

• 200 g of zucchini's flowers
• 4 eggs
• parmigiano reggiano (or a similar hard cheese)
• flour
• salt
• black pepper (if you like it)
• sunflower or peanut oil + a little piece of bread
• water or milk (it is your choice): some table spoons

For those not familiar, these flowers are yellow / orange and green. At the base and throughout the stem they sting a little.

Inside they have a great pistils full of pollen that attracts many insects. For this reason it is very important to check on the inside, before using them in the kitchen, that there are no unwanted guests.

First of all you have to remove sepals (little green things outside the corolla).

After that, open the flowers and check for insects, then wash it.

When all flowers are clean, start to cut them in pieces. It's not important to have small pieces: just go on one cut after the other.

Put 4 or 5 table spoons of flour in the sieve and sift the flour.

Add 4 eggs, some salt (quantity is up to you) and parmigiano reggiano, then add flowers too and mix all together.

If it is too dry (might be) add one after the other some table spoons of warm water or, if you like it more, of milk.

In this phase you can actually add everything that you think it could be good inside fritters, like black pepper, anchovies or a bit of nutmeg but if you decide to add anchovies, remember that they are usually very salty, so maybe you should reduce the quantity of parmiggiano or salt.

Put 1 liter of sunflowers or peanut oil in a frying pan and turn on the stove over high heat.

Take a little piece of bread (better if it's 1 or 2 days old) and let it float in the oil. When it browns a bit, the oil is ready.

Pick a spoon and start to put the compound in the oil. Be careful!

Let fritters fry for 1 or 1 and 1/2 minute, then flip them on the other side. Wait for a minute and put the fritters in a dish with some paper inside it.

Best is to serve them hot, but watch out because they are super hot at the center!

There are two different variation: instead of the flowers, you can actually use zucchini cut in to little pieces or stewed pumpkin.

Buon appetito!

See my other recipes here