Stuffed Courgette Flowers by Giuseppe Silvestri, Head Chef, Harrods
Enough for 6 people as a crunchy starter
Ingredients:
200 g ricotta cheese
1 onion, chopped
185 g canned tuna
salt and freshly ground black pepper
freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
4 long medium courgettes (not marrows)
200 g ricotta
2 anchovies, chopped
grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg yolk
20 courgette flowers
vegetable oil for deep-frying
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the batter
20 g yeast
100 g flour
75 ml water
50 ml beer
pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3/170°C.
Mix together the ricotta, onion and tuna, season and add grated Parmesan to taste.
Cut a small piece of skin from the straightest side of each courgette, so that they will sit
better in the baking tray. Then cut a ‘V’ shape from the top of each courgette and heap the filling
mixture into it. Place the piece that you cut out on top of the filling to help stop it drying out.
Put the stuffed courgettes in a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until
the courgettes are cooked through – if a skewer will push cleanly through a courgette, they are
done.
Mix the batter ingredients together until smooth and leave for 30 minutes.
Mix together the ricotta, anchovies, grated Parmesan and egg yolk.
Clean the courgette flowers: take off the spiky bits at the base and the central pollen stem.
Stuff the flowers with the ricotta mixture and gently twist each flower at the top to seal.
Dip the stuffed flowers in the batter and immediately deep-fry in hot vegetable oil. When
light brown, remove and drain on kitchen paper to absorb excess oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and
pepper and serve hot.
*taken from the book ‘From Seed to plate’ by Paolo Arrigo, published by Simon and Schuster