Description
I first fell in love with zucchini flowers when I was visiting Rome. I found them all over the markets and even in the grocery stores.
Where do can I buy them?
You can usually find zucchini flowers at farmers market or you can order them through a produce manager at a grocery store.
How to choose and clean zucchini flowers:
- Find them as fresh as you can and make sure the flower is tightly closed.
Note: These blooms will most likely be insect free. - Gently rinse them under cold water. Open them up slightly to make sure there are no insects.
I love the bright yellow bursts of color. There’s so much you can do with them including stuffing them with cheese and frying them for appetizers: Fried Stuffed Zucchini Flowers: Fiori di Zucca Fritti
Zucchini flowers add a delicate buttery flavor that goes well with cravanzina cheese. Cravanzina is an Italian Cheese made from a combination of cow’s and sheep’s milk. It is made in the Alta Langa region of Italy, known for Barolo and Barbaresco wines.
If you can’t find Cravanzina you can use crescenza. BelGioioso makes one that I’ve seen in most stores. If neither cheese is available I would use a regular brie that you can easily find.
Ingredients
Ingredients for the pie crust savory (Pasta Brisee)
- 180 grams (1 ¼ cup) All-purpose flour, sifted
- 100 grams (7 tbsp.) chilled butter
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg yolk lightly beaten
- 1–2 tbsp of ice water
Ingredients for the filling
- 100 g Cravanzina
- 16 Zucchini Flowers with pistil removed from the flower
- 2 Eggs
- Salt
Instructions
Preparation for the crust pasta brisee
- Sift the flour once more with the salt into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center.
- Cut the chilled butter into pieces and add it to the flour. Lightly rub the butter into the flour with the tips of your fingers lifting it and letting it sprinkle back down until you have a fine crumb like mixture.
- Add the sugar to the bowl and stir in using a fork making sure that it is well blended.
- Next mix the egg yolk with the water until well blended and drizzle it over the mixture stirring continuously with a fork or an icing spatula.
- You will notice the mixture starting to stick together at this point start to lightly use the hills of your hands pressing the dough together to form a round ball. The swifter you can be the better and easier this ball starts to form.
- Knead briefly on flour surfaced until smooth.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill over night or for at least for 1 hour before you use it.
Note: Let the pastry come back to room temperature and knead again before pressing
it out into your pan. - With a fork make little pricks into the pie crust all along the bottom and sides.
- Next put it in the oven at 350 degrees for 6 minutes to parbake.
Preparation of the filling
- Mix cheese and egg yolks in a food processor with a pinch of salt.
- Remove the pistil from the zucchini flowers.
- Take 10 of the flowers and dice them up and add to the cheese and egg mixture, reserve the rest of the flowers to arrange on top of the quiche.
- Next fold the mixture of cheese, eggs, and zucchini flowers into the par baked crust.
- Arrange the remaining zucchini flowers on top.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 25 minutes, set your timer at 15 and check in on it and then add 5 minutes and so on until it has a light gold color. Let it rest before you serve.
Notes
Just A few things when working with pastry:
Pastry will keep in the icebox for 4 – 5 days, tightly covered in plastic wrap.
Chilling the pastry before pressing it out will prevent it from burning and shrinking on you in while it’s baking.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 6