Nonna’s zucchini flower recipe

Last year I had just posted some photos of my garden in Facebook when I got a comment from my friend Zuly in Italy. Her post under a shot of zucchinis said something like “do you also eat the flowers?, they are delicious”. The idea sounded intriguing and fun, as we had never tried them.

However the comment came at a time when our tomatoes were in full production, so our attention was mostly focused to thinking about how many different ways were there to eat tomatoes, and who else could we offer them to take them off our hands…soon after there were no more flowers to pick. As we planted our garden this year I kept in mind to try the flowers for sure this season.

Our first try was cut up flowers in a salad, the bright yellow pieces looked awesome, but honestly could not distinguish their taste with the dressing. For the second trial I decided to have them stuffed, but since I am not much of a recipe follower I decided to ad lib it, using whatever I had on hand… I made the stuffing with cottage cheese, garden oregano pesto and Parmesan cheese. Each flower took about 2 tsp to fill, and from there they went straight to a hot pan lightly greased with olive oil. My wife and I had them for breakfast, they tasted delicious, but needed major improvement with the somewhat soggy texture .

I kept the whole flower and filled them though the top.

I grilled the flowers, turning them once, the black burned stuff is cheese.

Yesterday we had a special treat, my son K and his beautiful girlfriend came over to spend the weekend with us. She is Italian (real Italian), when I told her I had collected zucchini flowers earlier in the morning she immediately said she loved them, and offered to prepare them the way her “nonna” made them. Ha, she fell right on my trap!! If I had a mustache I would have turned its tips….finally a chance to see how it is really done.

Her preparation was elegantly simple but the result was awesome. She washed the flowers and cut the stems at the base. She then opened the flowers lengthwise, removed the stamen (where the pollen is in the center of the flower), and filled them with ricotta which she had previously salted and peppered. She wrapped the flower around the ricotta mix, passed them through an egg wash and finally covered them with flour before flash frying them in a shallow pan with olive oil. The flavor was subtle but delicious, and the texture was great as it was slightly crispy on the outside.

It is much easier to fill them through the side

close the flower by folding the sides over each other

To prepare the above dishes I harvest the male flowers early in the morning, right after collecting the pollen and distributing it among the female, or fruit bearing ones. The flowers look and are very delicate, so I bring them inside, put them in water and refrigerate them until I am ready to use them.