Ask the Expat: how to eat zucchini flowers

Do you ever post recipes? I had somewhere heard you could eat the zucchini with their flowers, but I’d never seen it done.

One of the reasons I was so excited to start a balcony garden was realizing that I could have a cheap and plentiful supply of zucchini flowers. Yum yum yum.

Zucchini flowers are quite easy to cook and eat. You can pick (easiest with scissors) male or female* flowers, preferably on the day they bloom. Wash them gently, inside and out, and pat them dry with paper towels. Pluck out the sexual organs inside, if you’re so inclined. The flowers can be refrigerated and kept for a day or so, but it’s best to eat them the same day you pick them.

There are plenty of ways to prepare zucchini flowers, but I usually fry them in olive oil after dipping them in egg and dredging them in a mixture of flour, oregano, salt and pepper, the way my grandmother made them. I fry the flowers on both sides until golden brown, then usually serve them with a dollop of tomato puree. To make them even more exciting, I sometimes stick a small piece of cheese (fresh mozzarella or ricotta) inside each flower and pinch the petals shut at the top before dipping in the egg.

Some people get really fancy with zucchini flowers, stuffing them with delicious mixtures of things, but I tend to find that’s not worth the effort. But if you’re skilled with a piping bag, I say go for it.

* Female flowers have a little zucchini at the base, and the male ones don’t. You can see the two types in the picture above.

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