Italian Summer Dishes - Frittelle di Zucchine

During the summer season, when zucchini flowers are in full bloom, it's time for the famous Fritella to make its grand appearance. This delightful Italian dish holds a special place in my heart as one of my all-time favorite recipes to prepare. I fondly recall my father tending to the zucchini plants, teaching me from a young age the art of harvesting the flowers in the early morning, giving them a gentle rinse, and allowing them to dry before frying.

The beauty of this dish lies in its simplicity, as it requires only a handful of basic ingredients. However, feel free to experiment and add your own twist by stuffing the flowers with ricotta cheese and sautéing them. There are countless ways to prepare this delicacy.

If you happen to have zucchini flowers growing in your garden, here's a basic recipe to try. Please note that I won't be providing precise measurements, as they depend on the number of flowers you have for the batter. Consider this a guideline to gather the necessary ingredients:

• Flour
• Salt
• Water
• Optional: Egg
• Finely diced garlic
• Salt and pepper
• Optional: Romano or Pecorino cheese

Mix all these ingredients together until the mixture resembles a pancake batter consistency. Begin by heating your pan with oil on high heat. Traditionally, my mother used Canola oil for frying, but you can also use olive oil. Keep in mind that olive oil tends to burn more quickly, so be attentive and generous with the oil.

Spoon the batter into the pan, forming shapes similar to pancakes, and fry them until they turn golden brown. As they come out of the pan and rest on a dish to dry, I like to sprinkle a dash of salt over them. Buon Appetito!

Tweet

Italian American Cooking--The Finished Product: Fritelle, Zucchini Blossoms

You've seen the latest video on my father's Italian garden and the zucchini blossoms in full. Now starts the season of endless nights of frying up fritelle, which no one can refuse. Literally.

Not because she's my mother but my mother can make the best fritelle this side of the Atlantic, cause my Aunt's and cousins in Italy are supreme chefs when its comes to Italian cooking.

Here's a glimpse of tonight's fritelle. Tweet

I was in Fritelli hell this summer!!

If you're a true Italian, then you know 'fritelli.' So, being that my mother decided to head over to Italy for the summer to visit family and because my uncle had passed, she was there to console her sister. When my mother is not home here in the states, it means one of us is going to take the fall for keeping up with my father's demands.

My father, God bless him is 78 years old and can out run me. His days are filled with tending to his massive garden and keeping the lawn prestine. In the midst of his daily jobs, he expects everyone to pitch in, whether you live in his house or not. I would come back from work late in the day and stop over where I would find in the kitchen and refrigerator a box of zucchini flowers. This was an everyday thing. Mind you these flowers are extremely hard to find in the grocers and cost a pretty penny.

So, in order not to let them go to waste, I would devote a few hours every other day to making fritelli. Now, fritellis are the most delicious thing you will ever eat. They're simple ingredients combined and fried with the flowers. Growing up my friends would flock to my house and wait for the hot fritellis to come off the stove, they are so good and absolutely addictive.

Because I work a lot, I really don't have a lot of time to grow my cooking skills. If I have to cook its minimal and just enough for me because I am also a health nut so my food is always very particular. Anyway, I couldn't keep up with the fritelli demand this summer and the more I made the more we gave away. My brothers and sister also did their fair share of cooking and reinventing what to do with the zucchini flowers but let me tell you...this little thing we call the fritella is amazing. Here is a simple recipe on how to cook them.

1. Clean a bunch of zucchini flowers (they're are always little garden bugs in them, so be sure to thoroughly clean.)

2. Add flour, salt, pepper, a handful of chopped basil and a really diced, small garlic.

3. Add just enough water to make the entire bowl of ingredients look like pancake mix. (If you make it too watery, they come out like crap so be cheap as you add water.)

4. Then, make sure you have a pan or wok ready to be fired up and the oil has to be super hot.

5. Add scoops of fritelli mix to the pan like you're making pancakes.(same idea)

6. Fry each side till they're golden and then lighly salt.

7. Eat and be merry.

Now, for those of you who need specifics on how much to put in each thing, really there is no such thing, use your eye and periodically taste the mix to make sure its salty enough. Sorry, but this is old school Calabrese style fritelli cooking.

Tweet