Roman-style courgette flowers, princes of fried food
Today we are talking about one of the tastiest and most satisfying traditional Roman foods: Roman-style courgette flowers (aka zucchini flowers or pumpkins flowers). It is a typical recipe, one of the protagonists of the fritto misto alla romana (Roman style mixed fried food), together with supplì (rice balls) and fried baccalà (cod), but also an excellent option for street food that you can easily find in the streets of the Capitale.
Its secret lies in the quality and size of the selected flowers, in the crunchy batter and in the fantastic popular idea of combining salted anchovies and a piece of quality mozzarella or provola cheese (always well drained) in the filling.
In the video-recipe you find on our YouTube channel, Chef Vincenzo teaches you how to make Roman-style courgette flowers at home in a simple way, but with a crunchy, dry and incredibly tasty result.
Ingredients:
Servings: 3-4 people
- 10-12 large, fresh courgette flowers
- 6 anchovy fillets
- 150 gr of well-drained mozzarella fiordilatte or provola cheese
- 300 gr of iced sparkling water
- 250 gr of cold flour (all purpose)
- 100 gr of all purpose flour
- Q.b. of extra virgin olive oil
- Q.b. of salt and pepper
- 1.5 liters of peanut oil or high oleic sunflower oil for frying
Roman-style courgette flowers: preparation procedure
- Cut the mozzarella fiordilatte into strips of 3-4 cm in length, drain them well for at least a couple of hours (if you are in a hurry, use dry provolone or a scamorza cheese).
- Remove the pistil from the flowers; rinse the flowers gently and dry them thoroughly.
- Meanwhile, divide the anchovy fillets into two parts.
- Stuff the flower with a piece of anchovy and a piece of mozzarella.
- Close the flower petals to form a bag that encloses the filling.
- To prepare the batter quickly, add the salt and extra virgin olive oil to the cold flour and mix with a whisk.
- Pour in the iced sparkling water and mix with a whisk briefly until you get a homogeneous mixture (it doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth).
- Put a pinch of salt in the flour, mix, then flour all the flowers, taking care to keep their shape.
- Bring the oil to fry at 170 °C, dip the flowers into the batter one at a time, immediately dipping them gently into the oil.
- Turn the flowers from time to time, they will have to fry for about 5 minutes, they can be drained when they are golden brown. Dry them on absorbent paper towels.
- Add a pinch of salt just before serving.
Enjoy your meal, Insideaters!
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