Flower cooking: edible flowers

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Even in ancient times, flowers were used in cooking. From the Greek, Chinese and Roman civilizations, they have reached our table. Some we eat and do not know that it is a flower, for example, broccoli, saffron, cauliflower, capers, artichokes. Italian cuisine is closely associated with pumpkin flowers, while Indian cuisine uses the most beautiful rose petals.

Edible flowers

About fifty edible flowers are currently known. In terms of nutritional value, they contain many nutrients and nutrients, proteins, vitamins, minerals. Moreover, they have a huge amount of antioxidants and at the same time contain almost no fat.

Edible flowers are an essential attribute of modern cooking, they are used by the most eminent chefs with pleasure, returning to forgotten traditions, creating new interesting recipes. They give any dish a special taste, beautiful and appetizing look. Therefore, it makes sense to use edible flowers in cooking, making them more colorful and delicious.

Gorgeousdelicious food with flower petals fascinates not only with its beauty, but also with an indescribable taste that can pleasantly surprise even skeptics.

What kind of dishes do they put flowers in?

Edible flowers are often used in salads, cakes, desserts, cocktails and teas. However, you need to understand that not all varieties can be eaten, there are also poisonous flowers. Therefore, before you start actively using them in cooking, you need to study this issue in order to navigate which flowers you can safely take, and which ones are better to refuse.

Follow these rules:

1. Eat only edible flowers. If in doubt, it is better to study the issue in more detail.
2. Home grown flowers without chemicals are best for food. Sometimes they are sold in supermarkets.
3. It is strictly forbidden to eat flowers from flower shops, as they are processed with many chemicals. You should also not pick flowers along roads and in public gardens.
4. Eat only the petals, removing the stems, stamens and pistil. If you are allergic, then it is better to gradually introduce this product into your diet. When the first symptoms of the disease appear, immediately discard the novelty.

Following these simple rules, you can please yourself with new flower dishes.

What kind of flowers are edible?

Let's take a look at some edible flowers, what they taste like and where to use them.

Pansies are beautifula flower with a sweet grassy taste, indispensable for decorating dishes.

Acacia is very fragrant and sweet. It is deep-fried or candied, and its taste with honey is especially interesting.

Basil - not only its leaves, but also flowers are used for food. Their taste is identical, but the flowers are slightly weaker.

Elderberry - only flowers and ripe berries are edible, otherwise it is poisonous, so you need to be very careful with it. Small inflorescences are put in fruit salads, omelettes, pancakes.

Cornflower - has a grassy flavor.

Carnation - its petals are sweet, with a pleasant delicate aroma. They are used for desserts, and when dried, they are indispensable for preparing sauces for white meat or fish. Be sure to remove the white part of the petal, it gives bitterness.

Hibiscus - used for tea. Petals have a sour taste. Hibiscus pairs well with blueberries in sweet dessert dishes.

Geranium - bright color and bitter taste, used in soups, salads and ice cream garnish.

Desserts with flowers

Today it has become very popular to use edible flowers for cake. The result is a work of art, not a simple dessert. Choose only the best flowers for decoration, always grown without the use of chemicals. Petals for decoration can be covered with sugar. It turns out not only tasty, but also beautiful.

You can freeze small edible flowers in water. For this it is convenient to useice containers. You need to put one flower in a cube. Such ice can be safely added to summer cocktails.

Flowers can be used to make flavored sugar. Especially fragrant rose petals are suitable for this.

Edible flowers for salads

The use of flowers in cooking has been tried and tested for centuries. If you finally decide on flower experiments, then by all means choose the right flower crops. For food, you need to take only proven plants.

In addition, they must be fresh, freshly picked. This is a prerequisite, otherwise they will look ugly and can spoil the appearance of any dish. Yes, and the taste may not change for the better.

If you want to keep a flower for one or two days, then the generative parts of flowering plants can be put in a glass of cold water, like a regular cut flower. The petals and inflorescences themselves can be stored in the refrigerator for a day in a bag. It should be noted that most flowers cannot be frozen.

But the leaves of the flowers are better stored in bags and can be frozen. In general, each plant is individual. As a rule, in many flowers, the white base of the petal has a bitter taste, and therefore it is better to remove them.

All inflorescences must be washed from dust before use, and then dried with paper towels. You need to be very careful with them, they are quite gentle. But you can not show so much delicacy to the leaves, they are rougher and calmly withstand washing anddrying.

Primroses and icing sugar

As we have already found out, flowers are not only decoration, but also an edible product. Therefore, you need to boldly use them, adding bright colors to life.

For example, lavender flowers are put in cookies, rose petals are one of the ingredients in Turkish delight, and nasturtium is so beautiful that it will proudly decorate any summer salad.

If you want to use edible flowers to decorate your dishes, you can use sugar icing or crystallization to keep them looking longer.

Very good in this sense are primroses. They are very beautiful and bright, but they do not represent anything interesting in taste. But in sugar, they become a wonderful sweet decoration that will become the pride of the most exquisite dessert.

Icing sugar

Beautiful spring primroses are one of the first early blooms. They look great in sugar icing. How to cook it? Everything is quite simple.

It is necessary to beat the white of one egg with a teaspoon of water. Next, with a soft brush, you need to coat the flower with a solution from all sides. And immediately put it in sugar. It is necessary to achieve such a state that the entire flower is covered with sweet crystals. Next, lay it on the parchment and let it dry. Primroses take a few days to dry, but denser plants may take longer.

After the flowers harden, they candecorate cake, dessert, pastries. Any dish with them acquires such a spring lightness and sophistication that simply cannot be described in words. It's actually very pretty.

You can also sugar mint leaves. The cake, decorated with leaves and flowers, is incredibly bright.

Pink petals

The most beautiful flower is the rose. Its petals have long been the most common decoration for desserts. But it is used not only for jewelry, but also as an independent ingredient. Consider, for example, rose jam. His recipe came to us back in Soviet times from Bulgaria, where sweetness is a national pride. Many of our sweet tooths also liked this jam, especially since it is not at all difficult to prepare, but it has an unusual taste and aroma.

Rose petals are added to tea, desserts, jellies, drinks, tinctures.

Salad flowers

Using edible flowers for salads is no longer exotic. Now there are many recipes for such dishes. The most eminent chefs vying with each other demonstrate wonderful recipes. Here is an example.

Spring salad with flowers. Ingredients:

1. Lettuce.
2. Spoon of plum mustard.
3. Mango compote - 3 tbsp. l.
4. Vinegar from primrose flowers.
5. Olive oil.
6. S alt.
7. Daisy flowers - 2 tbsp. l.
8. Violet flowers - 2 tbsp. l.
9. Primrose flowers - 2 tbsp. l.

Salad dressed with mustard, compote, vinegar,oil, pepper and s alt. All ingredients are mixed.

Lettuce leaves are washed and cut, and then smeared with sauce. The salad is topped with flowers and served.

Avocado with clover

Avocado and clover is an interesting combination. Light summer salad is very easy to prepare. And the sauce for this salad has an interesting taste and makes it very unusual.

Ingredients:

1. Ripe avocado – 2 pcs
2. Pink clover (flower with stem) - 4 pcs
3. Lettuce.
4. Cream – 50g
5. Lemon juice.
6. Soy sauce.
7. Wine vinegar (white).
8. Pepper.
9. S alt.

Lettuce leaves are washed and laid out on a dish. The peeled avocado is cut and the pit is removed. Then it is cut into thin slices and laid out on a salad.

To prepare the sauce, mix lemon juice with cream, add soy sauce, vinegar. Add s alt and pepper. Dress the salad with the resulting mixture. And decorate it with flowers on top.

These are interesting and unusual dishes you can cook with edible flowers. If you have not yet decided to eat them, then first experiment with decorating desserts and dishes with them. Who knows, maybe the next step will be making a flower salad.