Stuffed Zucchini Flowers
When Christine was pondering which recipes KO should feature this year, her daughter, Ilyana, made two suggestions – Stuffed Zucchini Flowers (λουλούδια γεμιστά) and Green Veggie Patties (λάχανο-κεφτέδες). Christine’s mum, Antigoni, has long prepared these dishes for her children and grandchildren. They are truly family favourites and often inspire a chorus of cheers from the family, when they realise they are on the dinner menu! Christine was yet to learn how to make the Zucchini Flowers – so along with Ilyana – she took a personal cooking lesson from γιαγιά! Ilyana proved to be a willing and capable student and was very keen to share her new culinary skills in this video recipe. We think Ilyana has a hidden cooking talent, see if you agree!
Ingredients
Ingredients
You will need…
½ cup olive oil extra virgin
3 large brown onions
½ bunch parsley washed
½ bunch mint washed
½ bunch dill washed
1½ cups tomato passata or fresh tomato puree
3 cups medium grain rice washed and drained
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground pepper
1/2 cup water
40-50 zucchini flowers washed
Additional extra virgin olive oil and salt
Additional 1½ cups water
Preparation
Watch the full recipe video below. Subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking the Subscribe link on the video.
Prepare the flowers
Remove the stems, sepals and pistils from the zucchini flowers.
Fill the flowers
Lightly coat the base of a baking dish with olive oil.
Carefully hold a flower, drawing the petals away from the centre of the flower, and fill it with 1-2 spoonfuls of the filling mixture. Do not overfill the flower. Fold over each of the petals in turn to seal and hold the filling in place.
Place the stuffed flower in the baking dish, with the top of the flower resting against the side of the dish. Continue until a full row has been placed in the baking dish.
Arrange the next row of stuffed flowers so that the top of each flower rests against the base of a flower in the first row.
Continue until all the flowers have been filled and arranged in the baking dish.
Drizzle the stuffed flowers with a little more olive oil and season them with salt.
Add 1½ cups of water to the baking dish.
Bake the flowers
Place the baking dish in an oven preheated to 180°C.
Bake the flowers for half an hour.
Then carefully turn all the flowers over and add another cup of water to the baking dish. Bake the flowers for another half hour.
Serve and enjoy!
Prepare the leftovers
You can cook any leftover filling by using the rice absorption method.
Transfer any leftover filling to a smaller pot, add water (two parts water to one part filling) and bring to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer, place a vented lid on the pot and cook till all the water has been absorbed.
