Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

Tonight was our weekly community meal evening and I was on starter and dessert. Due to my recent increased activity up at the patch, I noticed that we have quite a number of courgette flowers about and I've always wanted to try one of my many stuffed courgette flower recipes. So i went for it. I chose a simple recipe out of River Cafe Cook Book Easy as a basis to which I did my own thing. It worked a treat, apart from the first 2 flowers as my oil was way too hot so they instantly burnt, but the rest of them tasted great and everyone really enjoyed them.

Serves 6 (2 flowers per person)

Ingredients:

200g Soft Goats Cheese
12 zucchini (courgette) flowers
12 fresh sage leaves
250ml sunflower oil
Runny Honey, toasted pine nuts and Rocket leaves to serve

for the batter:

90g plain flour
3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 egg whites

For the first stage of the batter, sieve the flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre, pour in the olive oil and stir to combine. Loosen this paste by slowly adding enough warm water, about 150ml, to make a batter the consistency of double cream. Add 1/2 tsp salt, cover and leave for at least an hour.

To prepare the flowers, remove the green bits at the base and wash carefully off any bugs/dirt.
Push a tsp of goats cheese and a sage leaf into each flower. Press together.

Heat the oil to 180C in a deep frying pan.

Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold into the batter.

Dip the flowers one at a time into the batter. Tap gently to knock off excess, and carefully place as many as you can without touching into the hot oil. Fry until light brown, then turn to crisp the other side.

Serve on a bed of rocket leaves, drizzle with honey and scatter with toasted pine nuts.