Funny that on the last week of the Coquitlam Farmer’s Market I rediscovered the delicacy of cheese stuffed zucchini blossoms.
I say that I “rediscovered” zucchini blossoms because once I tasted these tender morsels, I was transported back to my childhood when we often ate stuffed zucchini blossoms.
I was inspired to try preparing zucchini blossoms because of a series of photos I saw on Instagram. Each week during zucchini blossom season the @WineBarbarian.ca (Bill Tieleman) goes to the Vancouver Farmer’s Market and gets blossoms from Forstbauer Organic Farms. Each week Tieleman does wildly creative things with the blossoms.
My favourite from this year was when Cinders the Dragon ate up some other beast leaving behind rib bones and zucchini blossom…. well never mind.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the Coquitlam Farmer’s Market when I saw a basket of the blossoms so I got a bag full and took them home to try my hand at cooking these tender little morsels. And, well actually, dealing with the zucchini blossoms was more work – delicate work – than I had anticipated!
We started out grating parmesan cheese and some two year old double smoked cheddar. And then realized that grated cheese was probably not the best for working with zucchini blossoms – we couldn’t figure out how to get the grated cheese into the blossoms!
So we switched to thin sliver-like slices of the parmesan and cheddar cheeses and slid them inside the blossoms.
Once we had the cheese inside the blossoms we dipped and rolled them in a whipped up egg mixture.
From the egg mixture into a bowl of flour to be rolled over until sure they had a thin coat all the way around. Onto a plate and ready to go the grill.
Even if it is cold and dark outside (so it is really difficult to take quality pics), I still prefer using the gas grill on the back porch rather than the electric stove inside.
I got about 1/2″ of oil in my Field Company cast iron pan good and hot before carefully setting each cheese filled blossom into the pan.
A few minutes in the hot oil and then I turned them over to let the flip side get crispy.
I still had a pile of grated parmesan so I sprinkled a little on each of the blossoms as I took them out of the pan. The leftover heat from the grill helped the cheese melt into the blossoms for a little extra cheesy-goodness.
To be honest – these were delicious! Tiny, tender morsels of flavour bombs. For a first attempt, I impressed myself.
And the best part of all of this? Both of the kids loved them and asked for more! Unfortunately, that was the final batch of zucchini blossoms for this year as the weather turned cooler. Oh well, like the Toronto Maple Leafs say, “There’s always next year.”