Courgette flower spaghetti olio e aglio

Courgette flowers are everywhere at the minute and I have just the recipe for them, no frying involved! You can find these gorgeous yellow blooms in the supermarkets, or in your garden if you’re lucky. For my American friends, we’re talking about zucchini flowers. Hey there!

To stuff, batter and fry such a glorious fresh ingredient is sacrilegious in my book. I wanted to use them in a way that showed off the beautiful hue and saffron like flavour. The only way to really do that is to keep things simple- an Italian classic with just a handful of ingredients.

Spaghetti olio e aglio with courgette flowers.

I’ve got to admit, last year I didn’t use any flowers from our forest of courgette plants. Not one. I guess because I’ve only ever seen them stuffed and fried, which doesn’t really appeal to me. By the time you’ve done that, all the courgette flower’s flavour is long gone, you’ve fiddled about for ages and your hands are covered in batter. I’m not sold on the idea.

This year I pledged to do something different and I had to be quick on my toes because we only have a few plants. Last year we has so many courgettes that we were overloaded. We roasted them, sautéed them, made courgetti until we couldn’t face it any longer, made my Asian style slaw until my julienne peeler broke… the crop was insane. So we’re back to two plants this year and I’m not typing from under a mound of courgettes.

Before I get in to the “which courgette flower to pick and why”, let’s have a moment of appreciation for the colour:

They’re such a beautiful shade! It’s a pleasure to see them in the garden but to have that colour dance about amongst a plate of pasta is even better.

If you’re buying your courgette flowers from the market, you can skip over this next section, but if you are growing your own of taking them from a friend’s plant, you need to know how to take the flowers without affecting the growth of the actual courgettes.

Which courgette flowers to pick

On a plant there are both male and female flowers. The male flowers grow on a long stem that stands a lot further from the centre of the plant than the female flowers. Often the male flowers are larger and more frilled, but the long stem is a dead giveaway that you’ve found your man. Now, you can eat both the male and female flowers, which you pick is more about the timing. The courgettes will grow behind the female flowers, but for that to happen the female flowers need to be pollinated. If you pick all the male flower before that happens, you’ll get no courgettes. So early on, make sure you leave a few male flowers.

For the female flowers, you need to wait until a lump starts to form behind them. These swollen lumps are the courgettes starting to form. At this point, you can take as many female flowers as you wish, but it needs to be done carefully so as not to damage the courgette fruit behind it.

Once you’ve picked them, rinse under cool water and leave to dry on kitchen paper or a tea towel. Once removed from the plant, the courgette flowers will last a day or two in the bottom drawer of the fridge before they start to wilt.

This olio e aglio (oil and garlic) recipe is really simple to throw together and great for feeding a crowd. The courgette flowers will add something extra special to the dish but it’s still important to go for the best quality oil that you can find. Serve with plenty of parmesan and a chilled glass of white wine.

I’m submitting this post to the Pasta Please link up, organised by Tinned Tomatoes.