Stuffed Pumpkin Flowers

I've heard about stuffed zucchini flowers but I have never heard of people stuffing pumpkin flowers.

Well they are just as good as zucchini flowers and a hell of a lot easier to find around here. A punnet of about 12 flowers will set you back about 1.5 euros, happy with that, I have tried these 3 times and I think I have figured out how to do them justice. Regardless, I'll never serve them to Italians because they always know how to do them better and will make sure you leave the table knowing the 'right' way to do them - not great for my cooking confidence :)

Three important elements - get the filling right, get the batter right, don't wait to eat them.

THE FILLING...

First time I tried to stuff them with ricotta, finely grated lemon rind and anchovies as the stuffing, the ricotta melted and spat all over me...lesson 1 - ricotta is too watery and the boys love anchovies but don't like lemon rind.

Second time I tried to fill them I thought I'd keep it simple and use mozzarella - the fresh bocconcini style mozzarella that you find everywhere here. I thought the boys would definitely like it like this. Lesson 2 - mozzarella is still too watery so if you don't want burns all over your arms from spitting oil, best to avoid it.

Third time - ah ha! With superior culinary wisdom obtained by my week's cooking course I learn that ementhal, of all cheeses, is great for this kind of thing. I don't rate it personally but Shane loves it so it was in the fridge ready for my third try. 

I kept it simple with just the cheese cut into 1cm x 1cm pieces to stuff the flowers - you need to be very careful not to break the petals when you fill the flowers or it doesn't hold the filling. 

THE BATTER...

I'm a massive fan of tempura, so I call on all my Japanese eating experiences in Melbourne to muster up a tempura style batter.

Ingredients:

1. Very cold aqua frizzante (mineral water)
2. Plain flour

Simple. Basically all you need to do is mix enough of the two ingredients together to make a runny paste, that has the consistency of....shampoo is all that comes to mind. 

Dip the flowers into the batter so they are completely covered.

Heat sunflower or peanut oil in a frying pan so that the oil comes up about 1 or 2 cms on the sides and fry those flowers turning once when the underside is crisp. The batter won't turn golden brown (at least it didn't with me, probably because I was too hungry and impatient to try them), but give it a try and let me know if you get them golden!

Drain excess oil on paper towels, season with salt and pepper, put some lemon wedges and homemade mayonnaise or aioli in a little dish and SERVE IMMEDIATELY! 

This was the other thing I did wrong, EVERY DAMN TIME...I put them in the oven trying to prepare other things for lunch and then when it came to serving them, they were shadows of their former glorious selves and I found myself apologizing and explaining how good they DID look when they came out of the frying pan.