I am just back from the French country side where we have spent a lovely few days of just playing or, alternatively, doing strictly nothing. It is so nice to get out of the city sometimes… One of the big bonuses of our summer house is that our neighbour lets us pick vegetables out of his vegetable garden, which is quite a change from picking vegetables from the supermarket shelves. It actually takes a lot of thinking out of the equation as we organise the menu around what is available in the garden, and start coming up with new ideas for recipes depending on the pick of the day.  Last week was all about Zucchini — my good friend Russell who was visiting, had eaten stuffed Zucchini flowers in a tapas bar in London, so he tried to recreate the tapas dish and it was amazingly good! Here is the recipe:

Stuffed Zucchini Flowers for 6:

-6 Zucchini flowers (you have to remove the little bit of seeds in the centre of the flower)

-1 goats cheese, preferably a fresh, creamy one

-a little garlic, salt and pepper to taste

-4 tablespoons of beer

-2 tablespoons of flour

-1 egg white

-olive oil to fry

Break up the goats cheese and mix it with a bit of garlic and some salt and pepper. Gently open up the zucchini flower and stuff the flower with the goats cheese mixture and twist it shut again. Beat together the beer, egg white and flower to get a batter (it needs to have the consistency of a crepe batter). Meanwhile heat up the oil in a frying pan, you need a good half centimetre of oil covering the pan. Dip the zucchini flowers in the batter and coat them well. Drop the zucchini flowers into the hot oil and fry until golden.

Serve as an appetizer, preferably on a hot summers night with a nice chilled glass of wine or a cold beer…

To print this recipe, click here.

– Emilie