I love pumpkin flowers for their delicate flavor and for their wonderful colors like the ones of a sun almost at sunset! One of the most common ways of cooking these delicacies is to fry the flowers by dipping them into a batter or you can fill them. So I’ve decided to fill but to bake them in the oven . Which ingredients could you cook them with? Surely with zucchini! You can find zucchini cream in this my recipe, but it’s a special cream that recalls another dish of the Italian culinary tradition: the Scapece.
Serves: 4
For the scapece cream:
- 450 grams green zucchini
- 1 peeled garlic clove
- White wine vinegar to taste
- Salt to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Fresh ground white pepper to taste
- Some mint leaves
Method
Peel the zucchini, cut the ends and remove the peel. Blanch peels for a minute, drain and immerse them in water and ice, so their color is preserved. Cut the zucchini into small cubes and sauté in a pan with olive oil until they are tender. Place the vegetables inside a mixer, pour oil and vinegar, add the garlic clove, mint leaves and peels. Season with salt and pepper. Chop finely : the cream has to be omogeneous. Let it cool.
For stuffed pumpink flowers:
- 16 pumpink flowers
- 2 anchovy fillets in oil
- 300 grams mozzarella
- 30 grams Parmigiano Reggiano, diced
- Some basil leaves
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt to taste
- Fresh ground white pepper to taste
Method
Clean the pumpkin flowers by gently removing the central pistil: I recommend you have to leave the flower intact! Wash them under running water and let them dry on a cloth. Meanwhile you can prepare the filling. Cut the mozzarella into cubes, chop the anchovies, wash and chop the basil leaves. Put these ingredients in a bowl with the Parmigiano Reggiano. Season with salt and pepper, stir carefully and fill your pumpkin flowers. Put the flowers inside a baking tin. Sprinkle with a little oil, salt lightly and bake in preheated oven at 180° Celsius degrees for about 7-8 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them cool.
Plating
Pour a few tablespoons of cream on the base of a plate and place the pumpkin flowers on top. Garnish with mint leaves.