Cypriot Recipes
Eleni’s Cypriot Battered Zucchini Flowers with Halloumi Recipe
Eleni from @myfamilysfooddiary shares her family recipe for Battered Zucchini Flowers with Halloumi! Eleni’s grandmother would often make these for her family when Eleni was growing up in Cyprus!
Sweet, aromatic zucchini-flowers stuffed with a slice of salty, squeaky halloumi, a fresh mint leaf and then lightly battered and fried to delicious golden perfection! YUM!!!!
Thank you Eleni for sharing this recipe with the Meri Month of May!!!
Eleni’s Cypriot Battered Zucchini Flowers with Halloumi Recipe
Ingredients
For the batter
- 135 g self-raising flour
- 50 g fine semolina
- ¾ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 250 ml mineral water, room temperature
For the stuffed and fried zucchini flowers
- 16 16 large zucchini flowers
- 200 g halloumi
- 16 large fresh mint leaves
- Oil for frying – neutral oil for deep-frying or extravirgin olive oil (EVOO) for shallow-frying – see cooking instructions below
Instructions
Preparing the batter
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Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
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Slowly whisk in the mineral water.
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Cover the bowl and leave the batter to rest for at least 30 minutes, at room temperature.
Preparing the stuffed and fried zucchini flowers
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Prepare the zucchini flowers by carefully cutting off the stem, removing the sepals and using your fingers or kitchen tweezers to cut off the pistil inside the flower.
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Run water through each of the flowers, shake off the excess water and then allow them to dry on paper towels.
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Wash and dry the fresh mint leaves.
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Use a paper towel to dry the whey off the halloumi. Cut the halloumi to produce 16 pieces – about 8cm long,2cm wide and 1/2cm thick. Note: You may need to vary the size of the halloumi pieces depending on the size of your zucchini flowers.
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Place a halloumi stick and a mint leaf inside a zucchini flower. Fold the petals over to fully enclose the filling inside and set aside on a plate. Repeat the process until all the zucchini flowers are filled.
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To deep fry the zucchini flowers add at least 5cm of neutral oil in a pot and allow it to reach a medium-high heat. To shallow fry the zucchini flowers, add 1-2cm EVOO to a fry pan and heat on medium-high heat.
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Check to see if the oil is ready by adding a drop of batter to it. If it starts bubbling straight away then it is ready.
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Hold the zucchini flowers from the petals to ensure they are sealed and dip them into the batter. Allow the excess batter to drip off before adding the battered flower to the oil.
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Batter and fry only a few zucchini flowers at a time. Fry the zucchini flowers for approximately 3 minutes.If you are shallow-frying them, fry them on both sides till golden brown
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Once fried, put the zucchini flowers in a strainer over a bowl and allow the excess oil to drain. Continue the process until all the zucchini flowers are done.
Serving the zucchini flowers
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Serve the zucchini flowers warm with a squeeze of lemon juice
Kali Orexi!