The Art of Frying Squash Flowers: A Guide to Creating Perfection

When it comes to frying squash flowers, one must approach the task with care and attention to detail. I'm only battering with one hand, as I want to minimize the mess and ensure that the batter doesn't get too close to the fry pot. The goal is to create a delicate balance between the crispy exterior of the batter and the tender interior of the flower.

The key to achieving this perfect balance lies in the batter itself. I use a mixture of flour, cornstarch, and other ingredients to create a crunchy exterior that complements the softness of the flower. The cornstarch is particularly crucial, as it provides a nice texture contrast to the delicate blossom. I know some might think it's excessive to add so much cornstarch, but trust me, it makes all the difference in creating that perfect crunch.

Before I even turn on the fryer, I take a moment to prepare the squash flowers. To prevent them from exploding and making a mess, I toss a little oil onto the petals of the uncooked blossoms. This simple step ensures that the flower stays closed and prevents any unwanted surprises during cooking. Some chefs might use this technique to create a swaying motion with their hands as they fry the squash flowers, but I prefer to keep things simple and straightforward.

Now, let's talk about the actual frying process. I take my time to carefully place the battered squash flowers into the hot oil, making sure not to overcrowd the pan. The goal is to achieve that perfect golden brown color without overcooking or undercooking the flower. It's a delicate dance between heat and timing, but one that requires attention to detail and patience.

As I wait for the blossoms to cook, I take a moment to appreciate the beauty of my creation. Squash flowers are truly a marvel of nature, with their delicate petals and intricate patterns. When they're battered and fried to perfection, they become an even more stunning sight to behold. In fact, I often arrange them in a way that showcases their natural beauty, perhaps grouping them together like a flower arrangement or placing them delicately on the plate.

The moment of truth arrives when I take my first bite of the crispy, golden squash flower. The crunch of the batter gives way to the tender interior of the flower, which is then infused with the subtle flavors of the crab mixture. And what a flavor it is! The lump crab adds a delightful texture and taste that complements the delicate sweetness of the flower perfectly. As I continue to savor each bite, the Anis licorice flavor from the Teragon comes to the forefront, followed by a burst of bright lemony freshness.

The combination of flavors and textures in this dish is truly sublime. Each bite is a masterclass in balance and harmony, with every element working together in perfect synchrony. Whether you're a seasoned chef or an adventurous foodie, frying squash flowers is a must-try experience that will leave you wanting more. And for me, it's not just about the taste – it's about the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into creating each delicate blossom.

In short, frying squash flowers is an exercise in patience, attention to detail, and creativity. It requires a deep understanding of texture, flavor, and presentation, as well as a willingness to experiment and push boundaries. But trust me, the end result is well worth the effort – a culinary experience that will leave you feeling like a connoisseur and eager to try more.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone I'm Antonia lefaso welcome to my house I'm so excited for this cook along with you guys we are doing the Feast of seven fish which is basically this bounty of fish on Christmas Eve it's an Italian American tradition that I absolutely love we're making crispy squash flowers with crab and Teragon and rotta and chives and lemon zest this is definitely a dish that has evolved over time for me um it's not a dish that my mom used to make but since I became a chef this is what I have brought to the mix so we have a couple of housekeeping tips that we need to go over before we start cooking number one I want to make sure that you have all of your ingredients okay you have a dutch oven on that has oil in it of your choice I prefer peanut oil but any kind of canola oil or vegetable oil for frying will do and just make sure that you have an oil thermometer in there so that we can regulate the temperature at 350 and if you have ricotta you don't not if you have Rota you should um your rotta if there seems to be like a lot of water in the container let's make sure we drain that so drum roll please we are going to start this cooking we're going to start by making the filling for the squash flour because it needs to go into the refrigerator to rest and then we will start on the batter which is essentially just a tempora batter very very easy and straightforward all right so let's start with the filling we're going to start with a little bit of garlic and shallots in a pan and we're going to let those just sweat and then we're going to add that to rotta a little bit of marscapone cheese the crab and all of the herbs so I have some butter that I'm going to start to just very gently slowly start to melt in a pan I don't want it to I don't want it to Brown I don't want it to cook I just want it to melt and while that's melting I love multitasking when we're cooking you want to start one thing and move into another cooking is about this kind of fluid motion it's about multitasking and the better that you get at it and the only way that you get better is through practice through taking classes is looking up recipes and practice practice practice the better that you get the more that you can do at once I know a lot of times when my family sees me cook they're like wow what takes us two days to cook you do in two hours and I'm like well I've been doing this for like 25 years I hope that I can cook a little bit faster than the rest um but that just comes with a ton of practice and uh really great multitasking skills um so what I did did the shallot is I cut it in half I left the root on the root is what's going to hold it together so I'm just going to pull back all of that garbage we don't need it and we're going to keep the shallot in half and we're going to basically brunoa the shallot very very simple uh knife skill but one that you need to practice okay I always say with knife skills people ask all the time how do I get better at cutting chots how do I get better at cutting onions how do I get better at cutting anything really and I'm like listen there's no way around it the only way you get better is through practice so what we're going to do is we're going to slice the shallot down lengthwise and then we're going to cut the shallot through the center and then we're just going to bring our knife down slowly and it's going to make perfect little brunoa pieces now if they're not perfect that's okay because this is going into the filling um which is essentially another word for the filling is farce right fancy word you guys can throw around with your friends every once in a while and be like oh the farce that I made for my squash blossoms is essentially just filling it's going to hide under all of that crab and all of that cheese so don't worry too much if the knife skills aren't perfect so I just went lengthwise you can see that and then just sort of through the center and I'm going to hold the shallot and just bring my knife slowly down I'm letting my knife do the work I'm not really pressing you want to have a sharp knife because a sharp knife doesn't really require to press down it's going to do the job for you I think more people get hurt using a Dull Knife than they do a sharp knife we you want to go basically all the way to the root and this is all of the shallot there and that's only one half of the shallot we're going to do the same thing with the other half of the shallot so again just all the way through the cuts are very nice and even just like that and then right through the center ever so gently and then letting the knife do the work for you slicing through those perfect pieces of Shallot woo got a little teary on that one that's okay it happens every so often okay so I've got the butter in here it's just starting to soften it's melted we're good we're going to continue I've got all those shallots and we're going to just open up a couple of cloves of garlic and chop those up and add it to the shallot and then we will start the base of this filling so you can buy a peeled garlic I'm absolutely into peeled garlic all day long I think think it's a great timesaver it's a great product found in the produce section it is uh you know they're in these little tiny cryovac containers I like the ones that are cryovac in little groups right so maybe it's six or seven group together because usually you want about six or seven clothes of garlic per recipe I think that's a good number when you see a whole container of garlic that's cryovac and then you open it they don't stay as fresh um as long so you want to try and find garlic if it is peeled in these little like kind of like super small packets that you guys can use um I would say please do not use a minced garlic I don't really love minced garlic I think it really changes the flavor of your dish I know that it's a great time-saving tool but I do think that you suffer in flavor and in quality um if I ever do find a great product of a pre-minced garlic I will let you all know but I have not found one today um so there is a little stem um a little root on garlic that you can trim off if you start to see it discolored it's fine but we're going to chop this so fine that that root is just kind of kind of disappear Through The Chopping of the garlic you're not really going to notice it no one's ever going to find it and it's totally safe to eat and I just think that it's a great time saer okay so the garlic and shallots are together we're going to just take this pan of melted butter which is right here I've stopped crying so nobody worry at home and I'm just going to go ahead and pour that shallot and garlic right into that butter I'm going to hit it with a little bit of salt so we've got the shallots and garlic just sort of warming in some melted butter we don't want it to get any color you don't want them to caramelize you don't want them to Brown you just want them to be soft and translucent you want to be able to see through the shallot see through the garlic okay and that's just kind of bringing out the natural flavor so when it's inside the stuffing you taste the beautiful flavors of Shallot and garlic not sort of the aggressive flavors of them being raw so we're going to do Rota let's put that back okay so I like to add all of the cheese and the herbs and the lemon zest before I add the crab and that's because I am trying to keep the crab as as lumped as possible right we bought a beautiful lump crab so I really want to make sure that the crab stays as whole as possible um and not necessarily you know shred throughout I'd like to be able to keep some of those nice pieces of lump okay now the cheese is cold right the marscapone specifically you know has a toughness to it so it's nice to have them at room temperature but what's really going to help this melt is going to be that hot butter with shallots and garlic that is what's going to break up this farce this stuffing so that you can just fold in the crab later so even if this cheese feels a little cold right now that's okay because we've got warm butter and garlic that's going to go over the top that's going to soften this and help us loosen it up okay so we're going to put some lemon zest and when I zest lemons I take the rasper and the lemon in my hand okay not like this but like this it feels more natural and I just go from top to bottom you know a lot of times you see people like going back and forth like it's a violin you don't need to just top to bottom just like that all the way around moving your hand in a counterclockwise Direction so that the lemon moves with it and then over in a Pat and I move on to my other lemon bringing the rasper from from the top down to the bottom top down to the bottom I love using zest so much from lemons it's has that really beautiful you know the oil of the lemon the actual essence of the Lemon versus the sourness of the lemon so we don't need these anymore we'll put the rasper away and we will start on our herbs okay so Teragon and chives I love chives it's like one of my favorite herbs it is just so good it's got that really just strong onion flavor add some green as well um but it's just got such a strong onion flavor so we're going to throw the chives in there and then Teragon I think Teragon and crab just go so well together and especially in this applic right we're cooking for the Feast of seven fish it's an Italian amican tradition this the flavor of fennel or Anis or licorice that is kind of reminiscent of that Italian cooking comes from Teragon so I think this is a great herb yes you can use basil but I really feel that Anis flavor that that Teragon has is a perfect addition of herb to this so the Teragon okay it's kind of weedy looking if you think about it right there's these pieces that are like looped in by other little strands that go right you just kind of want to pull it and then pull the top you do need to be careful for the top when you pull those herbs because these stems we don't want to eat we don't want to eat really any of the stem of the Teragon it's just too much now Teragon is an herb and I'm I mean obviously it's an herb obviously it's an herb when I'm saying it like that I'm like it's an herb it is strong it is when it com comes and knocks at your door it's not like a little Tap Tap Tap maybe like basil or thyme it like pounds on your door so you want to use it sparingly you don't want to go crazy with it you don't want it to be the only thing that people taste and unfortunately sometimes that's what happens with teron people are like oh there's something really strong in there and I don't know what it is it's usually Teragon so you have to use it wisely and by wisely just you know very sparingly one or two tablespoons just so that it enhances the dish we're looking for that f Anis licorice flavor that it brings um so we're just going to do a quick once over and a chop and then we will add both of these herbs to the mixture I'm going to give it a little mix on its own and try and get it going by just hitting it against the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula and then I'm going to go in with my hot butter with the shallots and the garlic in it and that's what's really going to help break this up and remember too the crab is sort of naturally salty on its own right this is already picked blue crab I'm sorry this is already picked crab so we also want to keep this butter in there that's great okay the butter once this gets cold is actually going to help firm up all of the mixture okay so it may seem like it's a little soft right now and you're like oh my goodness how am I going to mix this inside of um a Squash Blossom how's I going to get to stay it's not going to stay right now because this is a little too soft but once this all mixes together and gets cold that butter is actually going to harden again and it's going to be perfect to stuff it inside of the blossom me give it a little taste mhm it's ready for salt and pepper so a little bit of salt and just add a little bit of cracked black pepper then once all that's mixed together then we're going to add our crab now this is a mix because the Feast of Seven Fishes is obviously a bounty of fish for dinner for your Christmas Eve dinner this great Italian American tradition there's a lot of cooking that goes into that night so these kinds of things you can do ahead of time this crab mixture I would say you could make the day before it'll sit it'll get nice and firm you can even fill your squash flowers and let them sit the day before as well and then just fry them the day of so that you can enjoy your day with everyone else um but it's really important to really think about the things that you can do ahead of time to get done so that on Day of Christmas Eve morning you're not inundated with making this bounty all in one day so when you're folding crab into the cheese mixture you know you don't want to go back and forth like that that's going to break up the crab you want to go from top and then scoop the bottom and bring the bottom up to the top so I'm kind of doing the circular motion right so I'm I'm rotating the bowl I'm scooping the crab and the mixture from top to bottom top to bottom the circular motion is what's going to allow the crab to kind of mingle with the herbs and the lemon and the shallots and the garlic and the cheese without breaking up and we're still going to be able to keep those lump pieces of crab I'm going to go ahead and just give us a taste so good you can still taste the subtle flavors of crab it's so sweet and tastes like the ocean um but for me it's the Teragon and lemon that make this entire Dash so this mixture needs to cool for about 15 minutes so so why don't you all just press pause for 15 minutes let it get nice and cold and then I'll meet you right back here all right we are back everyone we have a nice cold crab mix and we are ready to stuff our squash flowers okay so squash flowers now here's the thing they seem like they are so delicate and they are but they hold so much flavor they um you're able to stuff them with so many different types of ingredients trust me I have done it and tried it um and they really hold up they are an incredible vessel to any kind of stuffing that you want to deep fry um and I just think that they are so beautiful first and foremost but they are strong they are beautiful and strong um and there's a couple different ways so basically the flower is what is attached to your squash okay they separate them sometimes you'll see them with a tiny little baby squash on the end and those are so adorable um and then there is a little sort of flowering bud in the center I am not into taking those out a lot of people say that you need to take those out for me the entire flour is edible but what I do like to do is trim the bottom so I like to take some kitchen shears you can use a knife but I like to just kind of trim the bottom a little bit on a bias so that there is just a little bit of a of an interesting cut if you will to the end of the squash we can leave the little end of the squash we can eat that it'll be delicious but as it gets a little longer it becomes a little more fibrous and that is not so great uh and what I like to say listen yes I work in a restaurant I have a couple of restaurants here in Los Angeles so yes it's easy for me to get these kinds of ingredients but what I always like to teach people when I'm mentoring and talking about how to cook at home and what we do is become friends with everyone at your local supermarket whether it's your fishmonger whether it's your butcher whether it's your cheese monger and the produce manager okay every purveyor that sells to restaurants sells to supermarkets so you really are able to get any of these ingredients um and then honestly I've had squash flowers shipped to me online so there's also those options but just know that especially around the holidays everyone's always looking to help they know that their customers are looking for specialty ingredients so all you need to do is ask okay so what I'm going to do now is actually create the little stuffing rounds if you will so I use a tablespoon just to kind of scoop it out and it's a little bit over a tablespoon and I like to kind of mold them into the shape of the squash so that way once they're molded they kind of just slip right in so I like to do that ahead of time so that I can wash my hands and then just work a little bit more gently with the squash not really worrying about the S the outside of the squash getting the crab mixture so we're just going to go and that's why it's so important for this mix to get nice and cold and that's why I suggested I mean absolutely do it the day before so it gets nice and hard and that's just so that the crab itself is more pliable it's easier to work with it's not getting stuck to your hands when you have a really cold product it'll work like that when you have a less cold product unfortunately you're at the mercy of the mix for 13 okay we're going to put this off to the side so now that we have all our little crab uh oval discs I guess you can call them we are ready to stuff what I'm going to do is actually just open up the squash from the top a little bit okay make a little peep hole if you will going to put the crab inside like so okay just kind of nustle it in there all the way to the base and then I just like to kind of cover the top with the rest of the flour and it's okay if there's a little bit of crab coming out you remember these are going to get battered there's going to be a whole batter that goes along okay so again just open the squash now if the squash some we are really small some are very very large right so we'll have to adjust our mix depending on the size of the squash right so I might just take half of the mix for this one because he's a little bit smaller he was a straggler he was the run of the litter that's okay we still love him we're still going to eat him or her just put it there just like that then we have the larger Blossom just like this right in the Center and then you see what I'm doing here I have a little towel just to the right of me so I have one clean hand this hand never touches any of the stuffing that is just for the squash I open the squash I keep it open there I use this hand to grab stuffing right I put it into the squash I will need both hands though to fill it so I just kind of wipe the residue a filling that comes off very quickly because the mix is nice and cold one hand here and then here okay then we just kind of use the flower to open up and to close and again that little bud in the center some people are a little bit more particular about it I am not okay not at all I really just enjoy all of the squash it's a vegetable and the whole thing is edible and this is exactly what you want to see from the squash right because the mix is nice and cold because I'm only using one hand to touch the mix and then I'm wiping it on my towel you don't see mix on the outside of the flour okay we are going to let these flowers go back into the fridge and let them get nice and firm for another couple of minutes while we make the tempora batter mix okay and again these flowers can be stuffed a day and a advance so you can make the crab mixture in the morning the day before Christmas Eve the day before the Feast of The Seven Fishes um and then later in the day maybe you stuff all your squash flowers right and then you just fry them day of because the squash flowers can stay stuffed in your refrigerator for just one day just one day anything more than one day they're going to get too wet and they're not going to survive and that's what I mean when I say that the squash flour is beautiful and durable because I mean look at this I mean this is a delicate flour and now I'm taking this very sort of Rich cheesy crabby mix and putting it in there and it's like yep don't worry I got you okay so I have all my squash flowers stuffed with that beautiful crab mixture I'm going to pop them back in the fridge for a couple of minutes while we make our tempora batter it is tempora batter making time uh tempora batter very very very easy group of ingredients it's essentially just flour rice flour corn starch baking powder salt and a little bit of sparkling water can you use a soda water absolutely I've got a little fancy Italian sparkling water because hey we're Italian all day today so I've just got a little bit of allpurpose flour AP flour I'm going to take a measuring cup we're going to just do one cup of flour this is all equal parts one cup of flour one cup of rice flour one cup of corn starch so you can really remember this batter for any grouping depending on how much you want to make because it's all equal parts rice flour and a little some cornstarch the cornstarch is what really really really creates that crispy crispy texture so even though it seems like a lot of cornstarch I promise you it is worth it and the other thing with this batter it's not really baking so you see me kind of grabbing the flour and grabbing the cornstarch and just kind of pouring it in it isn't this perfect measured um it isn't this perfect measured in a measuring cup kind of take a knife and cut it off cuz it's about so it's a little off here and there it's not really going to make a difference I promise so we got one tablespoon of baking powder and we also have a tablespoon of salt I've got all of my dry ingredients in a bowl and now we're just going to whisk in some sparkling water and then I'm gonna show you how I was taught to test my tempora batter which I still find to this day hilarious um the reason we're using a sparkling water in tempora is that it really has an opportunity to break up all of the flour mixture we can always add more water we obviously can't take any away so we'll test one and then we'll see what happens okay so I was taught and I'm going to show you right now we're going to take this out put it in the sink I was always taught to dip a portion of my hand into the batter so that you can kind of see how the batter flows off of your hand and then you can kind of test its thickness so you do this and I would say actually right now that is a little too thick so I might add a little bit more water but we're going to test one of our squash flowers first so um I've got my fryer at 350 right now we've got the cold crab stuffed squash flowers and the batter is ready to go okay so I want to do one hand into the batter and the other hand is so that I can just sort of flip the squash flowers with my tongs so no no two hands in the batter we want to keep one free so I'm going to dip make sure everything is coated I'm going to let it drain off going to put the squash into the fryer and I don't want to overcrowd the pot at all I really want to make sure that there's an opportunity for them to get nice and brown and they're going to take just seconds to cook because the crab in the center is already cooked we just want want to warm it and we just want the batter to get nice and brown okay so that's about half the squash flowers into that batter and right into the fryer I'm going to let them Fry on one side and then we're going to just start to flip them over they really only take about 3 or 4 minutes in this fryer because again the batter is diry it's really just about crisping the batter and warming the inside of the squash flour I'm going to have have some salt ready to go because as soon as these guys come out of the fryer I'm going to put them onto a sheet tray with a little bit of paper towels we're going to season them with salt and that's when the salt can really that's when the squash flour can really accept the salt is when it's comes right out of the fryer so there is always the occasional exploding squash flour that used to that usually has to do with the fact that the batter hasn't fully coated and that there's an air pocket somewhere so if you want to always test one you test a squash I dip it a couple of times like one two three really make sure it's dipped then I put it into the fryer um and then you have less of a chance of of exploding um but these look pretty good right now if they do explode you want to pull them right out of the fryer immediately take any of the Carnage any any of the filling that may have come out um and just kind of start over you want to make sure there's nothing left in there but it's really about making sure that everything is evenly coated on that squash flour and really the use of the corn starch in this batter is going to really prevent you from having an exploding squash flour because the corn starch I think is like the best glue there is so we got the first batch out we're going to just do a little bit of salt I like to say when we do salt you put it between three fingers your thumb your pointer finger and your middle finger and you just rub back back and forth so those salt particles get everywhere it's not just in one area they're looking good okay off to the second batch so again really making sure that this squash flour is coated it drips right into the fryer um and what I was saying before is you want to make sure that this batter is kind of always being mixed so I'm doing that with my hand I'm not scared of getting my hand into that batter really feeling the batter coat the squash flour this hand is totally free in case I need the tongs I'm only battering with one hand I'm also battering pretty close to the fry pot so that I'm not making a huge mess by dragging the drippings across any kind of stove top or anything like that there will be some casual you will 100% see some drippings there will be a little bit of cleanup but you try and keep it as minimal as possible by keeping the batter a little closer to the fryer another thing too is that before you turn these squash blowers before they have an opportunity to turn you can uh just kind of toss a little oil on top of the pl of the blossom that hasn't been touched by oil yet I'll show you what that looks like right now so I just kind of take a spoon and then before these blossoms are ready to touch I just throw a little bit of oil on the other side that hasn't been kissed by oil yet to make sure that there's no opportunity for exploding squash flour now I'm sure you've seen maybe some other chefs do this sort of sway back and forth with their squash flow so that the top of the flour kind of blossoms to come out I don't do this with this mixture because I really want to make sure that the top stays closed I think it's just safer that way so we're going to Forfeit the flowering part of the squash so that we make sure that we have blossoms that are fully cooked um and that the The Filling really stays in there but if you feel them right now the best part of this batter is the corn starch I'm telling you I know it seems like a lot of cornstarch but it works it makes it nice and crispy so even as I'm touching these blossoms inside of the fryer I can feel their crispy outside texture so I'm so excited to eat them because when you eat a blossom you've got that crispy texture this delicate Blossom and I haven't even gotten to the crab part yet of the crab and the Teragon and the lemon it's like three layers of goodness in this little bite so again it's really just like a couple of minutes until there's golden brown because the crab is already cooked the blossom takes seconds so it's really just a matter of getting that batter nice and crispy so I want to make sure I know what flowers just came out so we can season them perfect just do a little bit of salt again wave your fingers back and forth so that the salt particles lay evenly on there they are ready to go so with the squash flowers this is definitely a dish that you eat right away okay this isn't a dish that can hang out for a while unfortunately because it is fried so just think about that when you're doing it in batches maybe it's just kind of something that you have at the beginning of the night that people can munch on because it's not really something that can sit around for a while very rarely do I make those kinds of dishes but this dish is so special it's okay you're going to want to fry them to order and then I just take a little platter and I get ready to Plate them and there's nothing I don't like to any Frills any whistles any extra herbs I don't like to do any of that I really just enjoy the flow being the star of the plate because they're just so beautiful I mean I mean look at that they're so beautiful and so strong they hold up to this frying they hold up to this crab mixture oh so so so good kind of arrange them like a flower right looks like a beautiful little flower all the way around maybe do a couple like here in the center just kind of nuzzled on one another I can't wait to try these bad boys so good okay this is my favorite part ever this is the part where I get to eat all the squash flowers and just tell you about them and I know sometimes I just go whole squash flour in my mouth I'm not going to do that today I'm going to be a lady these are legitimately my favorite thing on the planet there should be a food group just on its own this is so good um where do I start the crunch first and foremost so much texture from that batter that corn starch in that batter that crunch crunch crunch and the flow is so delicate but it just kind of tears away and then you get to the crab and I got in my first bite this beautiful lump crab this beautiful piece of lump crab that's seasoned with Teragon is what I taste next so there's this Anis licorice flavor that kind of comes to the front of the to the front of the bite that then is like hey what about me lemon and there's just kind of bright lemony flavor that goes with it that goes so so so well with the crab it's just a perfect bitehey everyone I'm Antonia lefaso welcome to my house I'm so excited for this cook along with you guys we are doing the Feast of seven fish which is basically this bounty of fish on Christmas Eve it's an Italian American tradition that I absolutely love we're making crispy squash flowers with crab and Teragon and rotta and chives and lemon zest this is definitely a dish that has evolved over time for me um it's not a dish that my mom used to make but since I became a chef this is what I have brought to the mix so we have a couple of housekeeping tips that we need to go over before we start cooking number one I want to make sure that you have all of your ingredients okay you have a dutch oven on that has oil in it of your choice I prefer peanut oil but any kind of canola oil or vegetable oil for frying will do and just make sure that you have an oil thermometer in there so that we can regulate the temperature at 350 and if you have ricotta you don't not if you have Rota you should um your rotta if there seems to be like a lot of water in the container let's make sure we drain that so drum roll please we are going to start this cooking we're going to start by making the filling for the squash flour because it needs to go into the refrigerator to rest and then we will start on the batter which is essentially just a tempora batter very very easy and straightforward all right so let's start with the filling we're going to start with a little bit of garlic and shallots in a pan and we're going to let those just sweat and then we're going to add that to rotta a little bit of marscapone cheese the crab and all of the herbs so I have some butter that I'm going to start to just very gently slowly start to melt in a pan I don't want it to I don't want it to Brown I don't want it to cook I just want it to melt and while that's melting I love multitasking when we're cooking you want to start one thing and move into another cooking is about this kind of fluid motion it's about multitasking and the better that you get at it and the only way that you get better is through practice through taking classes is looking up recipes and practice practice practice the better that you get the more that you can do at once I know a lot of times when my family sees me cook they're like wow what takes us two days to cook you do in two hours and I'm like well I've been doing this for like 25 years I hope that I can cook a little bit faster than the rest um but that just comes with a ton of practice and uh really great multitasking skills um so what I did did the shallot is I cut it in half I left the root on the root is what's going to hold it together so I'm just going to pull back all of that garbage we don't need it and we're going to keep the shallot in half and we're going to basically brunoa the shallot very very simple uh knife skill but one that you need to practice okay I always say with knife skills people ask all the time how do I get better at cutting chots how do I get better at cutting onions how do I get better at cutting anything really and I'm like listen there's no way around it the only way you get better is through practice so what we're going to do is we're going to slice the shallot down lengthwise and then we're going to cut the shallot through the center and then we're just going to bring our knife down slowly and it's going to make perfect little brunoa pieces now if they're not perfect that's okay because this is going into the filling um which is essentially another word for the filling is farce right fancy word you guys can throw around with your friends every once in a while and be like oh the farce that I made for my squash blossoms is essentially just filling it's going to hide under all of that crab and all of that cheese so don't worry too much if the knife skills aren't perfect so I just went lengthwise you can see that and then just sort of through the center and I'm going to hold the shallot and just bring my knife slowly down I'm letting my knife do the work I'm not really pressing you want to have a sharp knife because a sharp knife doesn't really require to press down it's going to do the job for you I think more people get hurt using a Dull Knife than they do a sharp knife we you want to go basically all the way to the root and this is all of the shallot there and that's only one half of the shallot we're going to do the same thing with the other half of the shallot so again just all the way through the cuts are very nice and even just like that and then right through the center ever so gently and then letting the knife do the work for you slicing through those perfect pieces of Shallot woo got a little teary on that one that's okay it happens every so often okay so I've got the butter in here it's just starting to soften it's melted we're good we're going to continue I've got all those shallots and we're going to just open up a couple of cloves of garlic and chop those up and add it to the shallot and then we will start the base of this filling so you can buy a peeled garlic I'm absolutely into peeled garlic all day long I think think it's a great timesaver it's a great product found in the produce section it is uh you know they're in these little tiny cryovac containers I like the ones that are cryovac in little groups right so maybe it's six or seven group together because usually you want about six or seven clothes of garlic per recipe I think that's a good number when you see a whole container of garlic that's cryovac and then you open it they don't stay as fresh um as long so you want to try and find garlic if it is peeled in these little like kind of like super small packets that you guys can use um I would say please do not use a minced garlic I don't really love minced garlic I think it really changes the flavor of your dish I know that it's a great time-saving tool but I do think that you suffer in flavor and in quality um if I ever do find a great product of a pre-minced garlic I will let you all know but I have not found one today um so there is a little stem um a little root on garlic that you can trim off if you start to see it discolored it's fine but we're going to chop this so fine that that root is just kind of kind of disappear Through The Chopping of the garlic you're not really going to notice it no one's ever going to find it and it's totally safe to eat and I just think that it's a great time saer okay so the garlic and shallots are together we're going to just take this pan of melted butter which is right here I've stopped crying so nobody worry at home and I'm just going to go ahead and pour that shallot and garlic right into that butter I'm going to hit it with a little bit of salt so we've got the shallots and garlic just sort of warming in some melted butter we don't want it to get any color you don't want them to caramelize you don't want them to Brown you just want them to be soft and translucent you want to be able to see through the shallot see through the garlic okay and that's just kind of bringing out the natural flavor so when it's inside the stuffing you taste the beautiful flavors of Shallot and garlic not sort of the aggressive flavors of them being raw so we're going to do Rota let's put that back okay so I like to add all of the cheese and the herbs and the lemon zest before I add the crab and that's because I am trying to keep the crab as as lumped as possible right we bought a beautiful lump crab so I really want to make sure that the crab stays as whole as possible um and not necessarily you know shred throughout I'd like to be able to keep some of those nice pieces of lump okay now the cheese is cold right the marscapone specifically you know has a toughness to it so it's nice to have them at room temperature but what's really going to help this melt is going to be that hot butter with shallots and garlic that is what's going to break up this farce this stuffing so that you can just fold in the crab later so even if this cheese feels a little cold right now that's okay because we've got warm butter and garlic that's going to go over the top that's going to soften this and help us loosen it up okay so we're going to put some lemon zest and when I zest lemons I take the rasper and the lemon in my hand okay not like this but like this it feels more natural and I just go from top to bottom you know a lot of times you see people like going back and forth like it's a violin you don't need to just top to bottom just like that all the way around moving your hand in a counterclockwise Direction so that the lemon moves with it and then over in a Pat and I move on to my other lemon bringing the rasper from from the top down to the bottom top down to the bottom I love using zest so much from lemons it's has that really beautiful you know the oil of the lemon the actual essence of the Lemon versus the sourness of the lemon so we don't need these anymore we'll put the rasper away and we will start on our herbs okay so Teragon and chives I love chives it's like one of my favorite herbs it is just so good it's got that really just strong onion flavor add some green as well um but it's just got such a strong onion flavor so we're going to throw the chives in there and then Teragon I think Teragon and crab just go so well together and especially in this applic right we're cooking for the Feast of seven fish it's an Italian amican tradition this the flavor of fennel or Anis or licorice that is kind of reminiscent of that Italian cooking comes from Teragon so I think this is a great herb yes you can use basil but I really feel that Anis flavor that that Teragon has is a perfect addition of herb to this so the Teragon okay it's kind of weedy looking if you think about it right there's these pieces that are like looped in by other little strands that go right you just kind of want to pull it and then pull the top you do need to be careful for the top when you pull those herbs because these stems we don't want to eat we don't want to eat really any of the stem of the Teragon it's just too much now Teragon is an herb and I'm I mean obviously it's an herb obviously it's an herb when I'm saying it like that I'm like it's an herb it is strong it is when it com comes and knocks at your door it's not like a little Tap Tap Tap maybe like basil or thyme it like pounds on your door so you want to use it sparingly you don't want to go crazy with it you don't want it to be the only thing that people taste and unfortunately sometimes that's what happens with teron people are like oh there's something really strong in there and I don't know what it is it's usually Teragon so you have to use it wisely and by wisely just you know very sparingly one or two tablespoons just so that it enhances the dish we're looking for that f Anis licorice flavor that it brings um so we're just going to do a quick once over and a chop and then we will add both of these herbs to the mixture I'm going to give it a little mix on its own and try and get it going by just hitting it against the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula and then I'm going to go in with my hot butter with the shallots and the garlic in it and that's what's really going to help break this up and remember too the crab is sort of naturally salty on its own right this is already picked blue crab I'm sorry this is already picked crab so we also want to keep this butter in there that's great okay the butter once this gets cold is actually going to help firm up all of the mixture okay so it may seem like it's a little soft right now and you're like oh my goodness how am I going to mix this inside of um a Squash Blossom how's I going to get to stay it's not going to stay right now because this is a little too soft but once this all mixes together and gets cold that butter is actually going to harden again and it's going to be perfect to stuff it inside of the blossom me give it a little taste mhm it's ready for salt and pepper so a little bit of salt and just add a little bit of cracked black pepper then once all that's mixed together then we're going to add our crab now this is a mix because the Feast of Seven Fishes is obviously a bounty of fish for dinner for your Christmas Eve dinner this great Italian American tradition there's a lot of cooking that goes into that night so these kinds of things you can do ahead of time this crab mixture I would say you could make the day before it'll sit it'll get nice and firm you can even fill your squash flowers and let them sit the day before as well and then just fry them the day of so that you can enjoy your day with everyone else um but it's really important to really think about the things that you can do ahead of time to get done so that on Day of Christmas Eve morning you're not inundated with making this bounty all in one day so when you're folding crab into the cheese mixture you know you don't want to go back and forth like that that's going to break up the crab you want to go from top and then scoop the bottom and bring the bottom up to the top so I'm kind of doing the circular motion right so I'm I'm rotating the bowl I'm scooping the crab and the mixture from top to bottom top to bottom the circular motion is what's going to allow the crab to kind of mingle with the herbs and the lemon and the shallots and the garlic and the cheese without breaking up and we're still going to be able to keep those lump pieces of crab I'm going to go ahead and just give us a taste so good you can still taste the subtle flavors of crab it's so sweet and tastes like the ocean um but for me it's the Teragon and lemon that make this entire Dash so this mixture needs to cool for about 15 minutes so so why don't you all just press pause for 15 minutes let it get nice and cold and then I'll meet you right back here all right we are back everyone we have a nice cold crab mix and we are ready to stuff our squash flowers okay so squash flowers now here's the thing they seem like they are so delicate and they are but they hold so much flavor they um you're able to stuff them with so many different types of ingredients trust me I have done it and tried it um and they really hold up they are an incredible vessel to any kind of stuffing that you want to deep fry um and I just think that they are so beautiful first and foremost but they are strong they are beautiful and strong um and there's a couple different ways so basically the flower is what is attached to your squash okay they separate them sometimes you'll see them with a tiny little baby squash on the end and those are so adorable um and then there is a little sort of flowering bud in the center I am not into taking those out a lot of people say that you need to take those out for me the entire flour is edible but what I do like to do is trim the bottom so I like to take some kitchen shears you can use a knife but I like to just kind of trim the bottom a little bit on a bias so that there is just a little bit of a of an interesting cut if you will to the end of the squash we can leave the little end of the squash we can eat that it'll be delicious but as it gets a little longer it becomes a little more fibrous and that is not so great uh and what I like to say listen yes I work in a restaurant I have a couple of restaurants here in Los Angeles so yes it's easy for me to get these kinds of ingredients but what I always like to teach people when I'm mentoring and talking about how to cook at home and what we do is become friends with everyone at your local supermarket whether it's your fishmonger whether it's your butcher whether it's your cheese monger and the produce manager okay every purveyor that sells to restaurants sells to supermarkets so you really are able to get any of these ingredients um and then honestly I've had squash flowers shipped to me online so there's also those options but just know that especially around the holidays everyone's always looking to help they know that their customers are looking for specialty ingredients so all you need to do is ask okay so what I'm going to do now is actually create the little stuffing rounds if you will so I use a tablespoon just to kind of scoop it out and it's a little bit over a tablespoon and I like to kind of mold them into the shape of the squash so that way once they're molded they kind of just slip right in so I like to do that ahead of time so that I can wash my hands and then just work a little bit more gently with the squash not really worrying about the S the outside of the squash getting the crab mixture so we're just going to go and that's why it's so important for this mix to get nice and cold and that's why I suggested I mean absolutely do it the day before so it gets nice and hard and that's just so that the crab itself is more pliable it's easier to work with it's not getting stuck to your hands when you have a really cold product it'll work like that when you have a less cold product unfortunately you're at the mercy of the mix for 13 okay we're going to put this off to the side so now that we have all our little crab uh oval discs I guess you can call them we are ready to stuff what I'm going to do is actually just open up the squash from the top a little bit okay make a little peep hole if you will going to put the crab inside like so okay just kind of nustle it in there all the way to the base and then I just like to kind of cover the top with the rest of the flour and it's okay if there's a little bit of crab coming out you remember these are going to get battered there's going to be a whole batter that goes along okay so again just open the squash now if the squash some we are really small some are very very large right so we'll have to adjust our mix depending on the size of the squash right so I might just take half of the mix for this one because he's a little bit smaller he was a straggler he was the run of the litter that's okay we still love him we're still going to eat him or her just put it there just like that then we have the larger Blossom just like this right in the Center and then you see what I'm doing here I have a little towel just to the right of me so I have one clean hand this hand never touches any of the stuffing that is just for the squash I open the squash I keep it open there I use this hand to grab stuffing right I put it into the squash I will need both hands though to fill it so I just kind of wipe the residue a filling that comes off very quickly because the mix is nice and cold one hand here and then here okay then we just kind of use the flower to open up and to close and again that little bud in the center some people are a little bit more particular about it I am not okay not at all I really just enjoy all of the squash it's a vegetable and the whole thing is edible and this is exactly what you want to see from the squash right because the mix is nice and cold because I'm only using one hand to touch the mix and then I'm wiping it on my towel you don't see mix on the outside of the flour okay we are going to let these flowers go back into the fridge and let them get nice and firm for another couple of minutes while we make the tempora batter mix okay and again these flowers can be stuffed a day and a advance so you can make the crab mixture in the morning the day before Christmas Eve the day before the Feast of The Seven Fishes um and then later in the day maybe you stuff all your squash flowers right and then you just fry them day of because the squash flowers can stay stuffed in your refrigerator for just one day just one day anything more than one day they're going to get too wet and they're not going to survive and that's what I mean when I say that the squash flour is beautiful and durable because I mean look at this I mean this is a delicate flour and now I'm taking this very sort of Rich cheesy crabby mix and putting it in there and it's like yep don't worry I got you okay so I have all my squash flowers stuffed with that beautiful crab mixture I'm going to pop them back in the fridge for a couple of minutes while we make our tempora batter it is tempora batter making time uh tempora batter very very very easy group of ingredients it's essentially just flour rice flour corn starch baking powder salt and a little bit of sparkling water can you use a soda water absolutely I've got a little fancy Italian sparkling water because hey we're Italian all day today so I've just got a little bit of allpurpose flour AP flour I'm going to take a measuring cup we're going to just do one cup of flour this is all equal parts one cup of flour one cup of rice flour one cup of corn starch so you can really remember this batter for any grouping depending on how much you want to make because it's all equal parts rice flour and a little some cornstarch the cornstarch is what really really really creates that crispy crispy texture so even though it seems like a lot of cornstarch I promise you it is worth it and the other thing with this batter it's not really baking so you see me kind of grabbing the flour and grabbing the cornstarch and just kind of pouring it in it isn't this perfect measured um it isn't this perfect measured in a measuring cup kind of take a knife and cut it off cuz it's about so it's a little off here and there it's not really going to make a difference I promise so we got one tablespoon of baking powder and we also have a tablespoon of salt I've got all of my dry ingredients in a bowl and now we're just going to whisk in some sparkling water and then I'm gonna show you how I was taught to test my tempora batter which I still find to this day hilarious um the reason we're using a sparkling water in tempora is that it really has an opportunity to break up all of the flour mixture we can always add more water we obviously can't take any away so we'll test one and then we'll see what happens okay so I was taught and I'm going to show you right now we're going to take this out put it in the sink I was always taught to dip a portion of my hand into the batter so that you can kind of see how the batter flows off of your hand and then you can kind of test its thickness so you do this and I would say actually right now that is a little too thick so I might add a little bit more water but we're going to test one of our squash flowers first so um I've got my fryer at 350 right now we've got the cold crab stuffed squash flowers and the batter is ready to go okay so I want to do one hand into the batter and the other hand is so that I can just sort of flip the squash flowers with my tongs so no no two hands in the batter we want to keep one free so I'm going to dip make sure everything is coated I'm going to let it drain off going to put the squash into the fryer and I don't want to overcrowd the pot at all I really want to make sure that there's an opportunity for them to get nice and brown and they're going to take just seconds to cook because the crab in the center is already cooked we just want want to warm it and we just want the batter to get nice and brown okay so that's about half the squash flowers into that batter and right into the fryer I'm going to let them Fry on one side and then we're going to just start to flip them over they really only take about 3 or 4 minutes in this fryer because again the batter is diry it's really just about crisping the batter and warming the inside of the squash flour I'm going to have have some salt ready to go because as soon as these guys come out of the fryer I'm going to put them onto a sheet tray with a little bit of paper towels we're going to season them with salt and that's when the salt can really that's when the squash flour can really accept the salt is when it's comes right out of the fryer so there is always the occasional exploding squash flour that used to that usually has to do with the fact that the batter hasn't fully coated and that there's an air pocket somewhere so if you want to always test one you test a squash I dip it a couple of times like one two three really make sure it's dipped then I put it into the fryer um and then you have less of a chance of of exploding um but these look pretty good right now if they do explode you want to pull them right out of the fryer immediately take any of the Carnage any any of the filling that may have come out um and just kind of start over you want to make sure there's nothing left in there but it's really about making sure that everything is evenly coated on that squash flour and really the use of the corn starch in this batter is going to really prevent you from having an exploding squash flour because the corn starch I think is like the best glue there is so we got the first batch out we're going to just do a little bit of salt I like to say when we do salt you put it between three fingers your thumb your pointer finger and your middle finger and you just rub back back and forth so those salt particles get everywhere it's not just in one area they're looking good okay off to the second batch so again really making sure that this squash flour is coated it drips right into the fryer um and what I was saying before is you want to make sure that this batter is kind of always being mixed so I'm doing that with my hand I'm not scared of getting my hand into that batter really feeling the batter coat the squash flour this hand is totally free in case I need the tongs I'm only battering with one hand I'm also battering pretty close to the fry pot so that I'm not making a huge mess by dragging the drippings across any kind of stove top or anything like that there will be some casual you will 100% see some drippings there will be a little bit of cleanup but you try and keep it as minimal as possible by keeping the batter a little closer to the fryer another thing too is that before you turn these squash blowers before they have an opportunity to turn you can uh just kind of toss a little oil on top of the pl of the blossom that hasn't been touched by oil yet I'll show you what that looks like right now so I just kind of take a spoon and then before these blossoms are ready to touch I just throw a little bit of oil on the other side that hasn't been kissed by oil yet to make sure that there's no opportunity for exploding squash flour now I'm sure you've seen maybe some other chefs do this sort of sway back and forth with their squash flow so that the top of the flour kind of blossoms to come out I don't do this with this mixture because I really want to make sure that the top stays closed I think it's just safer that way so we're going to Forfeit the flowering part of the squash so that we make sure that we have blossoms that are fully cooked um and that the The Filling really stays in there but if you feel them right now the best part of this batter is the corn starch I'm telling you I know it seems like a lot of cornstarch but it works it makes it nice and crispy so even as I'm touching these blossoms inside of the fryer I can feel their crispy outside texture so I'm so excited to eat them because when you eat a blossom you've got that crispy texture this delicate Blossom and I haven't even gotten to the crab part yet of the crab and the Teragon and the lemon it's like three layers of goodness in this little bite so again it's really just like a couple of minutes until there's golden brown because the crab is already cooked the blossom takes seconds so it's really just a matter of getting that batter nice and crispy so I want to make sure I know what flowers just came out so we can season them perfect just do a little bit of salt again wave your fingers back and forth so that the salt particles lay evenly on there they are ready to go so with the squash flowers this is definitely a dish that you eat right away okay this isn't a dish that can hang out for a while unfortunately because it is fried so just think about that when you're doing it in batches maybe it's just kind of something that you have at the beginning of the night that people can munch on because it's not really something that can sit around for a while very rarely do I make those kinds of dishes but this dish is so special it's okay you're going to want to fry them to order and then I just take a little platter and I get ready to Plate them and there's nothing I don't like to any Frills any whistles any extra herbs I don't like to do any of that I really just enjoy the flow being the star of the plate because they're just so beautiful I mean I mean look at that they're so beautiful and so strong they hold up to this frying they hold up to this crab mixture oh so so so good kind of arrange them like a flower right looks like a beautiful little flower all the way around maybe do a couple like here in the center just kind of nuzzled on one another I can't wait to try these bad boys so good okay this is my favorite part ever this is the part where I get to eat all the squash flowers and just tell you about them and I know sometimes I just go whole squash flour in my mouth I'm not going to do that today I'm going to be a lady these are legitimately my favorite thing on the planet there should be a food group just on its own this is so good um where do I start the crunch first and foremost so much texture from that batter that corn starch in that batter that crunch crunch crunch and the flow is so delicate but it just kind of tears away and then you get to the crab and I got in my first bite this beautiful lump crab this beautiful piece of lump crab that's seasoned with Teragon is what I taste next so there's this Anis licorice flavor that kind of comes to the front of the to the front of the bite that then is like hey what about me lemon and there's just kind of bright lemony flavor that goes with it that goes so so so well with the crab it's just a perfect bite\n"