Zucchini Flowers

'Tis the season for flowers. The markets are heaving with their pretty yellow and green bulbs, their fronds unfurling atop light green Romanesco zucchini. I'm talking about the fiori di zucca - zucchini flowers. I fiori di zucca, a misnomer as zucca translates as pumpkin, are everywhere. 

In the supermarkets, they are exposed too long and appear as dark sticky unappetising appendages on the zucchini, best chopped off and thrown out. On the market stalls, they are resplendent. Large elongated flowers just waiting to be stuffed and battered for one of Roman/Jewish cusines classics: i fiori di zucca farciti e fritti. That is zucchini flowers stuffed with mozarella and anchovies, dipped in a batter and deep fried. The batter should turn out light and crisp and should have a crunch to it.

The first time I tried them was at the famed pizzeria Formula Uno in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. San Lorenzo is next to Rome's first university, La Sapienza, and home to many students. 

Formula Uno caters to the students and locals and is a simple place. The white washed walls in the two large dining areas are covered in pictures of racing cars and their pilots. Large wooden rectangular tables are pushed up as close together as possible. The menu is printed on the table mats. Often there is a queue so it's worth getting there a little earlier (around 8pm) than most Romans would. Within seconds of sitting down, a waiter appears. The service is at Formula one velocity.

Fried zucchini flowers aren't much to look at - long wedges of light brown batter through which can be seen the striations of the underlying flower. At Formula Uno, they are served on a plain white plate - two forlorn looking pieces of batter. I picked one up and bit into it. It was a revelation. The crispiness of the batter gave way to the soft melted mozarella with at its heart an anchovy filet giving the dish the right balance of saltiness - its umami factor. I was hooked.

Everytime I eat out I order at least one serving of fiori di zucca. Not all places do it well. Beware the oily batter which will sit heavy on the stomache. Not all will have it with anchovies. 

Fiori di zucca can be used in an infinity of ways: chopped and added to a risotto, sprinkled over pasta, fanned out on a pizza, as the main ingredient in a frittata or as side decoration on an antipasto dish. But more than anything they are stuffed: stuffed with mashed potatoes in Liguria), stuffed with ricotta, stuffed with rice.... then steamed or oven-baked with maybe a light drizzle of tomato sauce. 

I sometimes wonder who first came up with the idea of stuffing them. The fronds are frail and easily tear. Removing the pistil - bitter in flavour - is frought with peril. One slip and the petal is torn.

 I'm willing to bet that Italian housewives have a special implement which allows them to dive down into the flower,  nick the pistil at its base and remove it without a rent to the flower. 

 Over time and with no small amount of practise I've learnt to prepare and stuff these pesky flowers. The turning point came when the teaspoon I used for stuffing was replaced by a piping bag. It takes time and patience and is worth the effort.