In the words of my husband "these are just tiny little bites of deliciousness." In my opinion, the combination of the cumin and floral scent totally wow your taste buds.
Ingredients:
1 oz good blue cheese, crumbled
1 oz cream cheese, softened
pinch of cumin
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
24 Cucumber Flowers, cleaned and dried *
1 egg
pinch of salt
1 cup ice cold soda water**
1 cup sifted all purpose flower
1) Mix blue cheese, cream cheese, cumin, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Make sure to really incorporate the blue cheese into the mixture, don't leave big chunks. ***
2) Working one flower at a time, place a scant 1/4 teaspoon of the cheese mixture in the middle of the flower. Carefully wrap the flower petals around the mixture so that all the petals come together at the top. Set the flowers aside. You can stuff the flowers slightly ahead of time (store in fridge if more than 30 min and I wouldn't go more than 2 or 3 hours. I think the blossoms might get soggy from the stuffing mixture if kept too long)
3) Heat you oil to approx 365 degrees, oil depth should be approx 1-1 1/2 inches.
4) Mix your batter. It is important to do this right before you are ready to cook your blossoms. Make sure your blossoms are all stuffed and your oil is already heated. In a small bowl, beat the egg and salt with a whisk until blended. Pour in your soda water and mix just to combine. Whisk in the flour VERY lightly. It is OK if there are lumps in the batter. It is more important not to whisk the air out of the batter. ****
5) One at a time, drop the stuffed blossoms into the batter to coat and immediately gently slide the blossom into oil. The batter may appear to no coat completely, but just go with it. If you have immersed the blossom completely it will be properly coated. You will see that once the blossoms are in the oil the batter puffs up to form a perfect little puff. Also, be sure to be gentel when placing blossoms in the oil. First, you don't want to splatter, and second you don't want the blossoms to Plop in the oil and sink to the bottom of your pan.
6) While blossoms cook in the oil, gently stir the oil, very slowly, to prevent sticking and also you can kind of flip them over ever so gently for even cooking. The total cook time should be approx 3-4 min. or to a nice light golden brown. remove to a baking rack to drain any excess oil, give a light sprinkle of salt if desired, and enjoy immediately!
* Harvest your cucumber flowers when they are open - morning to early afternoon. I remove the stamen from any male flowers, but I know some people leave them. Rinse the flowers under a gentle stream of cold water and set to dry - I place mine on a paper towel with the open end of the blossom down. I will pat the outside of the petals with a paper towel if needed (depends on humidity usually. You can then put the dries blossoms in a plastic container lined with damp paper towels in the fridge for a few hours, although I generally eat the blossoms the same day. Another thing, harvesting your flowers will not really impact your cucumber harvest much. Most cucumber plants produce far more flowers than they can fruit.
** Icy cold water is essential to the lightness of the batter. I put mine in the freezer about 1/2 hr before I'm going to be making the batter (just don't forget about it in there!). You can also mix the water with ice for a few seconds before adding to the batter. One more note, you can use plain old bottle or tap water in this recipe, I just prefer the club soda for I lighter batter.
***If you have left over of the cheese mixture, mix in with sour cream to make a tasty dipping sauce for other items you might be frying.
**** A note about the batter. The batter recipe here will make a lot more than you need for this recipe. I usually will tempura a selection of items all at once - for me the clean up invloved in frying anything in this way is too much to bother with for just one item. So with this amount of batter I also did onions, carrots, mushrooms, green tomatoes, zucchini, green beans and some chicken. More than enough batter to make a complete tempura meal for 2. Just remember when doing a sampling of items, some take longer to cook (carrots and green beans probably the longest)
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Food Commandments
I think that if I ever met God at a party, we would speak about food. We would find this easy common ground, me because I love food and him because he created food.
I am not a religious person, but I would find this to be an interesting conversation. I would question him about his vision in giving us such varied and complex building blocks. "What were your thoughts behind the structure of an onion?" He would look for some feedback like "What do you think of the cranberry?" I would regal him with stories of how I took chicken to the next level with apple cider and sage. He would nod in appreciation.
At the end of my fictitious conversation with God, he bestows to me the secrets of creating great food in the form of "The Food Commandments". We then say our good-byes and mutually express our sincere gratitude for having met each other. I happily leave the party with the ability to make delectable meals out of nothing but the items on sale at the grocery store. Obviously, this is just a dream of mine.
In the absence of divine intervention, I have developed my own dos and don'ts in the kitchen. These are my Food Commandments. As with the actual biblical Ten Commandments, the first is the most important.
1. Never open a can
2. Season every step of the way
3. Never wash a pot
4. Low and slow is the way to go
5. Buy good cheese
6. Do not depend on dairy
7. Keep your pantry as you would your closet
8. Do not buy produce out of season
9. Vinegar is a cure all
10. Never forget that texture is as important as taste
As any good Christian might consider the Ten Commandments in their every day life, I consider my Food Commandments every time I enter the kitchen. I admit that I might break these commandments on occasion, usually it’s a Wednesday night when I just want to put some food into my family's stomachs. But as with any true believer I know that I must amend for my sins. Most often my self imposed penance is a session of cooking where I follow the Food Commandments to the letter, and I know I will always be rewarded with a meal that feels like heaven.
I am not a religious person, but I would find this to be an interesting conversation. I would question him about his vision in giving us such varied and complex building blocks. "What were your thoughts behind the structure of an onion?" He would look for some feedback like "What do you think of the cranberry?" I would regal him with stories of how I took chicken to the next level with apple cider and sage. He would nod in appreciation.
At the end of my fictitious conversation with God, he bestows to me the secrets of creating great food in the form of "The Food Commandments". We then say our good-byes and mutually express our sincere gratitude for having met each other. I happily leave the party with the ability to make delectable meals out of nothing but the items on sale at the grocery store. Obviously, this is just a dream of mine.
In the absence of divine intervention, I have developed my own dos and don'ts in the kitchen. These are my Food Commandments. As with the actual biblical Ten Commandments, the first is the most important.
1. Never open a can
2. Season every step of the way
3. Never wash a pot
4. Low and slow is the way to go
5. Buy good cheese
6. Do not depend on dairy
7. Keep your pantry as you would your closet
8. Do not buy produce out of season
9. Vinegar is a cure all
10. Never forget that texture is as important as taste
As any good Christian might consider the Ten Commandments in their every day life, I consider my Food Commandments every time I enter the kitchen. I admit that I might break these commandments on occasion, usually it’s a Wednesday night when I just want to put some food into my family's stomachs. But as with any true believer I know that I must amend for my sins. Most often my self imposed penance is a session of cooking where I follow the Food Commandments to the letter, and I know I will always be rewarded with a meal that feels like heaven.
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