Fried Zucchini Flowers

These beautiful little sweeties are in my top 3 most most most favorite foods.
They are incredibly easy to make, it's just a shame that they are so
hard to find in regular grocery stores. You can find them in specialty food stores,
we get ours at Claremont's farmer's market. I have to be sure to get there
early because they go quickly in the morning, they are quite
the popular item. Now, these pictures aren't very fancy or good quality because I hadn't
really intended on taking pictures. But in the midst of making them,
I decided to whip out the camera so I could share them with you because they are
just that tasty.

Fried Zucchini Flowers

• Fresh zucchini flowers
• Flour, 1 cup
  
• Cold water, 1 cup
  
• 1 egg
• Veggie oil, 2-3 cups (extra virgin olive oil will do just fine as well)
• Salt

Heat the oil in a pan. It needs to be hot enough to be able to fry the flowers to a golden brown color. (I like to toss a little piece of bread in before to make sure it's at the right temp. If it floats to the top and starts frying nicely, you're there. But if it starts to burn right away, turn the heat down...I guess that's kind of obvious. Hehe.) Pull out the stamen from each flower before dipping in the batter (this takes a few minutes). Wisk together the flour, water and egg until smooth, no lumps. Gently dip the flowers in the batter, letting the excess run off into the bowl. Put into the oil and let fry 2-3 minutes on each side. When they are ready to come out, put them on a plate with a paper towel to drain the excess oil. Salt immediately! And enjoy. :)

There is so much you can do with these flowers. They are great just
by themselves with salt but they also taste great dipped in ponzu sauce or soy sauce.
You can also put a small block of parmesan cheese in the center of each
flower before frying, yuummmm... or any kind of cheese mixture. Make a tomato
dipping sauce too! Paul and I have enjoyed them many times and look
forward to asking the farmer every Sunday, if he has
any flowers left.