Even in ancient times, flowers were used in cooking. From Greek, Chinese and Roman civilizations, they reached our table. We eat some and don’t know that it is a flower, for example, broccoli, saffron, cauliflower, capers, artichokes. Italian cuisine is tightly connected with pumpkin flowers, while Indian cuisine uses the petals of beautiful roses.
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 practically do not contain fat.
Edible flowers are an integral attribute of modern cooking, they are enjoyed by the most famous chefs, returning to forgotten traditions, creating new interesting recipes. They give any dish a special taste, a beautiful and mouth-watering look. Therefore, it makes sense to use food flowers in cooking, making them more colorful and sophisticated.
Great delicious food with flower petals fascinates not only with its beauty, but also with an indescribable taste, which can pleasantly surprise even skeptics.
What dishes do flowers put in?
Edible flowers are often used in salads, cakes, desserts, added to cocktails and teas. However, you need to understand that not all varieties can be eaten, there are poisonous flowers. Therefore, before you begin to actively use 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:
- Eat only edible flowers. If in doubt, better study the issue in more detail.
- Self-grown flowers without chemicals are best for eating. Sometimes they are sold in supermarkets.
- It is strictly forbidden to eat flowers from flower shops, as they are processed with many chemicals. It is also not worth picking flowers along roads and in squares.
- Eat only the petals, removing the stems, stamens and pestle. If you are allergic, it is better to introduce this product gradually into your diet. When the first symptoms of the disease appear, immediately discard the novelty.
Observing these simple rules, you can please yourself with new floral dishes.
What kind of flowers are edible?
Let's look at some edible flowers, what they taste like, where they can be used.
Pansies - a beautiful flower with a sweet grassy taste, indispensable for decorating dishes.
Acacia is very fragrant and sweet. It is deep-fried or candied, its taste with honey is especially interesting.
Basil - not only its leaves, but also flowers are used in food. Their taste is identical, but in flowers it is slightly weaker.
Elderberry - only flowers and ripe berries are edible, otherwise it is poisonous, therefore you need to be very careful with it. Small inflorescences are placed in fruit salads, omelets, pancakes.
Cornflower - has a grassy flavor.
Clove - its petals are sweet, with a pleasant delicate aroma. They are used for desserts, and when dried, they are indispensable for the preparation of sauces for white meat or fish. Be sure to remove the white part of the petal, it gives a bitterness.
Hibiscus - used for tea. Petals have a sour taste. Hibiscus goes well with blueberries in sweet dessert dishes.
Geranium - has a bright color and a bitter taste, used for soups, salads and for decorating ice cream.
Desserts with flowers
It is now very popular to use edible flowers for a cake. The result is a work of art, not a simple dessert. Flowers for decoration, choose only the best, always grown without the use of chemistry. Petals for decoration can be coated 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 use ice containers. You need to put one flower in a cube. Such ice can be safely added to summer cocktails.
With the help of flowers, you can make flavored sugar. Especially fragrant rose petals are suitable for this.
Edible Salad Flowers
The use of flowers in cooking has been tested for centuries. If you finally decided on flower experiments, then be sure to choose the right flower cultures. For food, you need to take only proven plants.
In addition, they must always be fresh, just collected. This is a prerequisite, otherwise they will look ugly and will be able to spoil the appearance of any dish. Yes, and taste may not change for the better.
If you want to keep the flower for one or two days, then the generative parts of flowering plants can be put in a cup of cold water, like an ordinary cut flower. The petals and inflorescences themselves can be stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours. It should be noted that most of the flowers can not be frozen.
But the leaves of flowers are better stored in bags, and lend themselves to freezing. 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.
Before use, all inflorescences should be washed from dust and then dried with paper towels. You need to be very careful with them, they are quite gentle. But the leaves can not show so much delicacy, they are more rude and calmly withstand washing and drying.
Primroses and icing sugar
As we have already found out, flowers are not only a decoration, but also an edible product. And therefore you need to safely use them, adding bright colors to life.
For example, lavender flowers are placed in cookies, rose petals are one of the ingredients in the preparation of Turkish delight, and nasturtium is so beautiful that it will proudly be the decoration of any summer salad.
If you want to use edible flowers to decorate dishes, then for a longer preservation of their appearance, you can use sugar glazing or crystallization.
Primroses are very good in this sense. They are very beautiful and bright, but taste nothing interesting. But in sugar they become a wonderful sweet decoration that will become the pride of the most exquisite dessert.
Icing
Beautiful spring primroses are one of the first early flowers. They look great in sugar glaze. How to cook it? Everything is quite simple.
It is necessary to beat the protein of one egg with a teaspoon of water. Next, with a soft brush you need to smear the flower with a solution from all sides. And then put it in sugar. It is necessary to achieve such a state that the whole flower is covered with sweet crystals. Next, put it on parchment and let it dry. Primrose dry for several days, but more dense plants may take longer.
After the flowers harden, they can decorate a cake, dessert, pastries. Any dish with them acquires such spring lightness and sophistication that it simply cannot be described in words. It is actually very beautiful.
You can also sugar mint leaves. The cake, decorated with leaves and flowers, turns out to be incredibly bright.
Pink petals
The most beautiful flower is a rose. Her petals have long become the most common dessert decoration. But it is used not only for jewelry, but also as an independent ingredient. Recall, for example, rose jam. His recipe came to us back in Soviet times from Bulgaria, where sweetness is a national pride. Many of our sweets 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.
Flowers for salads
Using edible flowers for salads is no longer exotic. Now there are many recipes for such dishes. The most famous chefs vying with each other demonstrate miracle recipes. We give an example.
Spring salad with flowers. Ingredients:
- Lettuce.
- A spoonful of plum mustard.
- Stewed mango - 3 tbsp. l
- Vinegar from primrose flowers.
- Olive oil.
- Salt.
- Daisy flowers - 2 tbsp. l
- Flowers of violets - 2 tbsp. l
- Primrose flowers - 2 tbsp. l
The salad is seasoned with mustard, compote, vinegar, oil, pepper and salt sauce. All ingredients are mixed.
Lettuce is washed and cut, and then smeared with sauce. Top salad is decorated with flowers and served on the table.
Clover Avocado
Avocado and clover are 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:
- Ripe avocado - 2 pcs.
- Pink clover (flower with stem) - 4 pcs.
- Lettuce.
- Cream - 50 g.
- Lemon juice.
- Soy sauce.
- Wine vinegar (white).
- Pepper.
- Salt.
Lettuce is washed and laid out on a dish. The peeled avocado is cut, the bone is extracted. Next, cut into thin slices and put on a salad.
To prepare the sauce, mix lemon juice with cream, add soy sauce, vinegar. Add salt and pepper. Season the salad with the mixture. And decorate it with flowers on top.
Such interesting and unusual dishes can be prepared with edible flowers. If you have not yet decided to eat them in food, then first experiment with decorating them with desserts and dishes. Who knows, maybe the next step is to make a flower salad.