Zucchini Flower Tempura
Hello!☀️
I’m Miki, a woman in my late 20s who’s recently fallen in love with home gardening🌿
In Japan, balcony gardening and small-scale vegetable growing have been gaining popularity in recent years. Inspired by YouTube videos on hydroponics, I started growing zucchini and herbs. Well… my zucchini are actually growing in a bucket with soil, so it’s not hydroponic, but still fun!
Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 30 and single, but I suddenly felt this urge to nurture something. My grandparents were all passionate about gardening and farming too. Only one of them is still with us now, but the two who loved working in the soil lived into their 90s and nearly 100. In Japan, it’s often said that “touching the soil is good for your health,” and I hope to enjoy this hobby at my own pace for a long time.
Lately, my zucchini plants have been blooming like crazy! But… all the flowers are male. Without female flowers, I won’t get any fruit, which is a little disappointing. Still, I wanted to make the most of those beautiful blossoms, so I did some research.
Turns out, eating zucchini flowers is quite popular in places like Italy. In Japan, more and more people are enjoying them as tempura (lightly battered and fried) too.
Actually, in Japan, we have a long-standing tradition of eating edible flowers like nanohana (rapeseed blossoms), fukinoto (butterbur sprouts), and shiso flowers, especially in spring. It’s always fun to see edible flowers lined up at supermarkets and roadside markets.
So, I tried making tempura with the zucchini flowers I grew myself. Fresh out of the oil, they were crispy, and although they lost some crispness after a while, they still had a soft, delicate flavor that was delicious!😋
Maybe this sounds surprising to some of you overseas, but I’d love to share more about Japanese home gardening and food culture in the future.
Hopefully, my female flowers will bloom soon, and I can harvest real zucchini—I’ll keep you posted!🌿
【Simple Zucchini Flower Tempura Recipe】
1.Check inside the flowers for any bugs and rinse well.
2.Gently dry the flowers with a paper towel.
3.Mix equal parts flour and carbonated water.
4.Dip the flowers into the batter.
5.Fry them in hot oil.
6.When removing them from the oil, keep the tips touching the oil for a moment before lifting them out—this helps drain the excess oil.
7.Place the fried flowers on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb extra oil.
8.I dipped the tempura in salt before eating — simple, but so tasty!
Note:
In my house, we usually shallow-fry them with just a small amount of oil. Deep-frying can be tricky, plus with rising food prices, we’re trying to save oil as much as possible. Also, oil degrades over time, so shallow frying is a healthier choice—a trend I think many Japanese households are following these days.
Oh, and when cooking with oil, make sure to use long cooking chopsticks (saibashi). Regular short chopsticks can easily lead to burns, so be careful!
ズッキーニの花の天ぷら
こんにちは☀️
最近、家庭菜園に夢中な20代後半のMikiです🌿
日本でも、ここ数年ベランダガーデニングや家庭菜園がじわじわ人気。私も、水耕栽培のYouTubeに影響されてズッキーニやハーブを育て始めたんだ。ズッキーニはバケツに土を入れて育てているから水耕栽培じゃないけど。
30歳が近づいてきて、独身だし…ふと「何かを育てたい」って思ったのも理由かも。それに、祖父母が庭仕事や畑を楽しんでた影響もあったりして。今は一人だけ生きてるけど、土いじりの好きだった2人は90代や100歳近くまで元気だったの。日本では昔から「土に触れると健康に良い」って言われてるし、私ものんびり続けていきたいなぁ。
でね、最近ズッキーニがたくさん花を咲かせたの！でも…全部雄花。雌花が咲かないと実がならないから、ちょっとガッカリ。でもせっかくだから、ズッキーニの花をどうにか楽しめないかな〜と思って、色々調べてみたんだ。
そしたら、イタリアではズッキーニの花を食べるのがポピュラーらしくて、日本でも天ぷらで楽しむ人が増えてるって知って、早速チャレンジ🍴
実は日本では、他にも菜の花やふきのとう、しその花なんかを天ぷらにして楽しむ文化があるんだよね。春になると、スーパーや道の駅で「食べられる花」が並ぶの、結構楽しい。
今回、自分で育てたズッキーニの花を揚げてみたら…揚げたてはサクッと、時間がたつとサクッと感は少し薄れたけど、ふんわり優しい味で美味しかった〜！😋
海外の方にはちょっと面白いかもだけど、日本の家庭菜園と食文化、これからもっと発信していきたいな。
いつか雌花も咲いて、実も収穫できたら、また報告するね🌿
簡単なレシピ
①花びらの中に虫が履いていないか確認して花を良く洗う。
②花の水気をよくふき取る。
③小麦粉と炭酸水を同量で混ぜる。
④花を③の衣にくぐらせる。
⑤油で揚げる。
⑥油から揚げる時に少し先っぽを油に付けた状態をキープしてから箸で取り出すと少し油切れが良くなるよ。
⑦お皿にキッチンペーパーを置いて揚げた花を並べる。
⑧天ぷらを塩につけて食べたよ。シンプルだけど、めっちゃ美味しかった〜！
※最近我が家では少量の油で揚げ焼きにするのが定番。上手く揚がらないこともあるけれど、物価高の中油はできるだけ消費量を減らしたいから。あと、油は劣化するからね、健康面も考えて揚げ焼きにすることの多い日本家庭は増えているんじゃないかな。
油で調理するときの箸は菜箸という長いタイプのものです。食事用のタイプは短いからやけどしちゃうよ。気を付けてね。
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The list below also includes pronunciation symbols for English words and idioms.
以下の一覧には英単語とイディオムの発音記号も含まれています。
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