I found a packet of tempura mix I'd forgotten about in the cupboard - yes, I'm sure I should be able to make my own tempura batter but I gather it's better with some rice flour which I didn't have. I picked a bunch of the pumpkin blossoms, which do all seem to be female, and which flower at the same time as the embryo pumpkins form - a couple of them the baby pumpkin came away with the flower. Stripped all the green bits and removed the stamens and whatever else the knobbly bits in the middle are. They were heavy and waxy and the perfume was a bit overwhelming. I looked around for other things to make into tempura; had carrots, red pepper, a sweet potato,courgettes (zucchini), lettuce in the kitchen, and gathered a few very small broad (fava) beans in their pods, some comfrey leaves and flowers (in the picture) and foraged some sorrel leaves and nasturtium flowers from round and about on Molly's walk.
Checked recipes for dipping sauce; lacking mirin and dashi I had to settle for various alcohols in store and some grated strong red radish, and added ginger, garlic, chopped Welsh onion. Not brilliant, but passable.
The pumpkin flowers thus cooked really were utterly delectable, the perfume turned to sweetness and they were soft and light and quite substantial. One of the best parts of a very good platter of tempura - the broad beans were a pleasant surprise cooked thus too, the comfrey less interesting than I remembered, the nasturtiums good but a bit too delicate.
I would urge anyone to eat pumpkin flower tempura!
8 comments:
I regret to report that I am salivating now. OM NOM NOM.
Without being too specific, how does one tell a female pumpkin blossom from a male pumpkin blossom?
Hai! Oishii desyoo!
How exciting... I want to eat these too
Beautiful images, Lucy!
I have too many baby acorn squashes on my one vine. They might become dinner some night this week, thanks to your inspiration.
Oohhh...this is my favorite of the squash blossom flowers. i think.
And good for you for thinking to fry up a veg assortment! Makes much more sense than just doing the blossoms, the way i did.
that sounds delicious!
The cool summer is causing me to have only those beautiful flowers and hardly any fruit on my zucchini and spaghetti squash vines. I am sad to say that I am too lazy to cook them. I did that last year and they were good, but Jerry was unimpressed. He tends to like what he already knows about and suspect anything novel.
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