Squash or Pumpkin Blossom Fritters
Source of Recipe
www.kstrom.net/isk/food
Recipe Introduction
"Only in the southwest are the blossoms of squash and pumpkin important as a regligious symbol, as well as food. They appear as sacred symbols in many Pueblo ceremonies, and gave rise to a popular design worked in silver. There is a Hopi Squash Kachina (Patung). He is Chief Kachina (wuya) for the Hopi Pumpkin Clan. He runs with men of a village in spring ceremonial dances to attract rain clouds. The Hopis and Pueblo farmers gather large quantities of squash and pumpkin flowers at the end of the growing season, when these flowers cannot make fruit; that's the time white farmers harvest their curcurbitae and pull up or plow under the still-flowering vines."
List of Ingredients
Squash or pumpkin blossom fritters (Pueblo style) serves 4 - 6
2 dozen large squash blossoms
(4 dozen of the smaller pumpkin blossoms)
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin powder
2 - 3 cups finely ground cornmeal (masa harina)
oil for deep frying
If you're a gardener or truck farmer, you can do this; otherwise you'll not find blossoms. Farmers must thin the blossoms of these vines, because the vine can support only a couple of pumpkins or a few squash. But they don't usually bring the flowers to market. Perhaps you can persuade a local organic grower to give you some, or your health food co-op to carry them in their short early-summer season. and a potential big-flower-harvest at season's near-end when the shortness of the growing season left means no flowers can finish fruit.
Rinse and pat blossoms dry. In a shallow bowl, beat eggs with milk, chili, salt, cumin. Dip blossoms in egg mix, then roll gentle in cornmeal. Refrigerate for at least 10 minutes to set coating. Heat 2 " of oil in a deep saucepan to hot but not smoking (375°). Fry blossoms a few at a time until golden, drain on paper towels. Keep warm in 250° oven until ready to serve.
Recipe
Blossom Beignets, Anishinaabeg style:
1 egg yolk
2 cups ice-cold water
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 2/3 cups white flour
Whip the egg yolk and baking soda into the water in a large dipping bowl. Sift in the flour, mix well. Batter should be thin, rather watery, run easily off a spoon. It should be used no more than 10 minutes after made, i.e. still bre quite cold when it hits the frying oil. Dip blossom, twirl to coat thoroughly, Turn after 1 minute and fry 1 minute longer, lighter gold than the cornmeal coating in the Pueblo version. Sprinkle with sifted powdered sugar while still draining and hot from the oil. Keep warm in oven. Alternatively: omit sugar, serve with small dipping bowls of or berry syrup.
Traditionally, the flowers were used in soups and stews in 2 ways. In the commonest, they were thickeners -- put in at the beginning, the fragile flowers cooked away into the broth and had no individual identity. Put in near the end, they were heated through, softened a bit (especially th female blossoms, which have tiny squashes or pumpkins forming at the stem end) as a sort of vegetable -- although the rest of the soup or stew was likely to be full of dried berries, so maybe I should say as another fruit.
Up north here, these fritters were traditionally made with pumpkin and squash flowers too. No chile or cumin was used, and about 1/2 tsp (or no) salt. A batter of flour would be more likely to be used than cornmeal if there was a good trade supply of it, because although some corn was raised, it was nowhere near as much as in the southwest, and a bit farther north of the Great Lakes, the growing season is too short for curcurbitae.
The blossoms were most often eaten as a sweet with maple syrup or sprinkled with maple sugar -- and that's still a great way to eat these fritters, too -- blossom-beignets. You can also sprinkle them with sifted powdered sugar, as with New Orleans beignets.
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