Every day during the summer, at 6:56 am and 8:43 am, Marion Sauveur gives you an idea of a recipe to brighten up your taste buds.
Today the zucchini flower.
Marion Sauveur, like every morning, you tell us about the products of our beautiful land and this morning, a flower.
Not just any: a pretty slender, yellow flower on which the zucchini grows: the zucchini flower! We have been eating flowers since Antiquity. For a long time, they were consumed for their virtues. It was chef Jacques Maximin who put the zucchini flower back on our plates in the 1980s, a stuffed flower that serves as a container and brings delicacy to the plate.
There are 2 types: the female flowers on which the zucchini and therefore a mini zucchini grow, and which have a sweeter flavor, and the male flowers, which have a single stem and a more bitter taste.
The peculiarity of zucchini flowers is that they open early in the morning and as soon as the heat gets too strong, they close.
It is ideal at this hour to go and pick them.
On the market, choose them open if possible and especially very yellow!
They are very fragile flowers, do not wait to consume them.
And when we cook them, we must remove the peduncle of the female flower and the stamens of the male flower.
It gives the dish a bitterness that is not necessarily pleasant.
How do you suggest we cook the zucchini flower?
In the Southeast, they are generally eaten in donuts.
I suggest a lighter recipe: pan-fried flowers.
The ideal is to cook female flowers with this little zucchini.
We start by sweating chopped shallots with a little garlic, before delicately adding the flowers with their zucchini.
It is better that the flowers are placed on the edge of the pan so as not to be damaged.
Add a small diced tomato, a sprig of rosemary and 2 thyme.
And we cook covered for a few minutes.
Ingredients
8 female zucchini flowers
2 shallots
1 clove of garlic
2 tomatoes
Rosemary
Thyme
Olive oil
1 goat cheese
The steps of the recipe:
1.
Sweat the chopped shallots with a little garlic in a pan with olive oil.
When it starts to brown, gently add the flowers with their zucchini.
It is better that the flowers are placed on the edge of the pan so as not to be damaged.
2.
After 2-3 minutes, add a small diced tomato… a sprig of rosemary and 2 thyme.
And we cook covered ... a few minutes.
3.
Still to dress, with a little olive oil and the crumbled goat cheese.
A little olive oil before serving.
You can even crumble goat cheese and it's a perfect accompaniment to a fish.
Like every day, you ask a chef for a tip. Today, to a chef from the Var.
Yes, that of the three-star chef Christophe Bacquié, based in Le Castellet in the Var. "It can be stuffed for example with a small ratatouille. You made a small ratatouille the day before, you season it and you avoid that there is too much juice inside. I will add a little basil. , marjoram, full of herbs like that. Close them, put them in the oven and why not put them in the ratatouille juice. That means you have to drain the ratatouille a little bit at the start. confuse like that for a long time in the oven, so that the zucchini flower becomes slightly translucent ".
At Le Castellet, Christophe Bacquié works it stuffed with sea bream, curry, pastis.
It cooks for a long time with a broth of langoustines and cakes.
A beautiful land-sea agreement.
It is in Le Castellet, in the Var.
Where do you suggest we taste this zucchini flower, elsewhere in France?
In Tours, in Hautes Roches.
Chef Didier Edon prepare zucchini flowers stuffed in donuts.
They accompany a lobster, worked in its shell and served with a béarnaise.