Cheese stuffed squash blossoms also called Flores de Calabacitas Rellenas
Ingredients:
12-20 squash blossoms, either from zucchini, squash, pumpkin or any type of squash
3 ounces soft cream cheese or chèvre cheese
1 tablespoon milk
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese or 3 tablespoon Romano (it’s stronger)
1 1/2 tablespoon finely diced chili (I used jalapeño, but your choice of spice level)
flour
2 eggs
1 tablespoon water
cooking oil (to get 1/4 -1/2 inch in pan)
[Music] hello welcome to another episode of as salt and buttery with intent to satisfy anyway today we’re doing something that’s a very very seasonal thing okay um I was lucky enough I went to the farmers market and I was able to find some squash blossoms for sale now most people don’t sell the squash blossoms because they let the squash blossoms grow into zucchini or yellow squash or something like that and then sell sell that at the farmers market instead so what the first thing that we have to do is is rinse these in cold cold water as cold as you can get okay because otherwise they end up getting limp so that also serves to get the bugs off of them because squash blossoms have a tendency to like any other flower have a tendency to have some bugs in them and you don’t want squash blossoms that have been treated with a lot of insecticides because that will change the flavor and could possibly make you sick depending on how sensitive you are to those anyway so first thing to do rinse in as cold water as you can get okay then once you’ve rinsed them you want to gently gently Pat them dry with a paper towel over the top okay you have to do it gently otherwise you will end up squishing the squash blossoms okay now after you’ve done that then we can let these dry for a little bit more okay go and leave the paper towel on top of it we’re going to start making the filling now for the filling we have cream cheese or chevr cheese I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that right but it’s still a cream cheese consistency now what we’re adding is some Romano or parmesan okay um if you’re adding roano you’re going to want to use half the amount otherwise it tends to uh be stronger Romano cheese is stronger and flavor and scent than um than parmesan cheese parmesan is actually for a hard cheese is pretty mild in flavor and you want to mix that together really good and it’s okay if you got a few little lumps or whatever but you want to try to get it distributed as much as possible now you want to make sure also that the uh cream cheese or other cheese that you use is room temperature so that it mixes easily so you’re not fighting with this brick now a little bit of milk and a little bit of green chili now you can use uh jalapeno you can use canned chili if you use canned chili it tends to be milder in flavor jalapeno tends to be a little bit spicier than the than the canned green chilies okay um but they also don’t carry the excess water from the canning process now as you can see this has a little bit of soupin to it which is going to make it easier for putting into the squash blossoms they’re not very large so we only need a tiny bit for each one oh okay and if you happen to have your own vegetable garden and you’re growing your own um zucchini and stuff like that you know how you always end up with more zucchini than what you can use well this is a way to cut down on a little bit and have a very seasonal treat now after you’ve mixed this all up what you’re going to want to do is bring over your squash blossoms okay roll the paper towels off make sure no bugs are crawling okay if they are squish them rinse pat dry again okay now very very carefully what we’re going to want to do is fill the flower blossoms okay hold on just a second so you’re going to take the flow okay and very carefully pull it open a little bit okay because you have to have an opening to be able to put the cheese filling into so very carefully now as you can see inside there is the um the St Stam of the flour okay now you can either pull that up to give yourself some more room or you can leave it it does not matter okay and technically speaking this would count as a stem so I would trim that off but that’s not necessary these are small enough they’ll cook very very quickly so I’ll have a little bit of added veggies along with my cheese and my flour like I said this is a very very seasonal thing I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and just have not been able to get the squash blossoms to do it so we take some of the cheese filling and basically kind of like gently cram it in there okay you want to do it kind of gently because you don’t want the flower to just fall apart and your fingers will probably get messy with this that is okay but as you can see I’m getting some of the cheese mixture in there okay like I said little messy but that’s okay hands wash and the whole idea is to basically fill up this Blossom part with the cheese now as you get each one done just set set it to the side okay this one’s done set to the side then we go on to the next one so I’m going to finish filling these then I’ll show you what we next okay now that we have carefully stuffed the blossoms with the cheese it’s okay if it’s a little bit messy now what we want to do is lightly roll them in the flour okay we’re going to shake off the excess flour just tap tap tap tap see that just gets a little bit of flour on it okay all over helps so then after we’ve done that we set them down and then we’ll go on to the next step so let me get these all coated and then we’ll go on then I’ll show you what happens next okay now we have some oil like canola oil which will not smoke at a higher temperature you can use canola oil or peanut oil you need an oil that’s not going to smoke at a higher temperature because it turns out if they do then they turn nasty and carcinogenics so you want oil that’s not going to smoke okay now I have here two eggs beaten with some water okay which helps make it a little bit runnier now very carefully I’m going to take each Blossom dip it in the egg okay because we want to get it covered with that and the flour helps it stick then very carefully we place it into the hot oil now you’re going to watch this cuz this happens pretty quick if the oil is hot enough okay we’re going to take this to a nice light golden brown we’re going to have to turn it but it also allows us to keep an eye on it okay I’m just doing one now to show you how it looks and it only takes about depending on how hot your oil is only takes about 2 minutes 2 to 4 minutes so almost perfect and you only need about a/4 inch of oil okay so see we’re getting that nice gold golden brown color okay almost finished oh yes there we go that’s what I was looking for okay now pull it out carefully set it on a paper towel to drain now you can get away with doing because of how quickly they cook you can get away with doing two to four of these at a time so I’m going to go ahead and finish these up okay then we’ll come back at the end and show you what it looks like thanks okay as you can see here I have the last tube that I’m pulling out and these look perfect lightly golden brown ready to go okay not burned because this is a flow it is rather delicate so you have so you have to be careful with it okay we don’t want to overcook it because then you lose the whole thing and we don’t want to undercook it because then anyway so like I said depending on how hot your oil is 2 to 4 minutes total for each flour okay so this Cooks up pretty quick works great as an appetizer very seasonal treat have some fun with this modify it so it fits you make it awesome let me know what you think thank you once again this was as salt and buttery with intent to satisfy thank you