- verdurine fritte in pastella
Once again I resort to the Italian title which sounds a lot nicer than its English equivalent. Basically these are vegetable strips fried in a light batter. The novelty is that they include courgettes’ flowers (in the picture they are the blobby things in the bottom right corner). Oh yes! These are a delicacy in Italy and something I have always wanted to try making. You can stuff them, fry them or indeed use them in other recipes. The only problem was they don’t sell the flowers here in the UK (they do in Italy). So imagine my delight when the courgette I planted and nurtured this year started growing like mad and producing lots of courgettes as well as flowers! I have never seen anything as big as this plant! It has basically taken over my mini vegetable patch (which I created in an old whisky barrel). Every day I look and another couple of courgettes have sprung up. Unbelievable! Do they all grow as fast as that? Anyway I had 4 flowers to use today so I decided it would be a bit of a waste to make the batter just to fry them, hence the idea of adding other vegetables. I used courgettes (of course), carrots and asparagus. Of course you can try other vegetables too. Peppers would be very nice for example, as well as aubergines or cauliflower. The recipe for the batter, which I thought was very light, came from the Giallo Zafferano website. By the way: you must eat them as soon as you have cooked them or they lose their crunchiness. Needless to say the diet will start tomorrow…ha ha 😉
INGREDIENTS
Vegetables of your choice cut in strips
FOR THE BATTER
2 eggs, separated
150 gr. plain flour, sifted
200 ml. milk
a pinch of salt
Sunflower oil for frying
METHOD (FOR THE BATTER)
Start by separating the eggs. Whisk the egg yolks together, then add a bit of salt, the milk and the sifted flour. Whisk well in order to avoid any lumps. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff. Add to the mixture by gently folding in. This will be the batter you use to coat the vegetables (and the courgettes’ flowers!)
- the batter in the making
Fry in small batches in plenty of hot sunflower oil until golden and crispy. Enjoy!
- one very happy courgette plant
By the way what you see on the leaves is not mould. They have a silvery streak.
I’ve tried this dish again (what? Wasn’t I supposed to be on a diet?) following Candi’s suggestion. Instead of milk I used sparkling mineral water. The batter was definitely lighter. As an addition to vegetables I also fried some prawns, again thanks to Candida’ s tip off, AND Apple rings . I saw this in the Dolomites. Please note: I have basically never fried in my life. What is happening to me?