Dear readers,Please allow me to apologise again for my absence from this website! Life has been really busy (as always) and I am just about to go on holiday.
One Saturday morning as I sipped my cup of coffee in the garden, I noticed that all of the chive flowers had blossomed. They looked so pretty that I decided to take a few snaps.
I then remembered reading Shu Han's post last summer on Chive Flower Tempura. This is a beautiful recipe that's, fortunately, quite simple too. It was a few weeks later that I finally got around to making the tempura - I was lucky that there were still some chive flowers left!
Fried Chive Flowers
A handful of chive flowers
½ cup plain flour
½ cup beer
A pinch of salt
Frying oil/fat (quantity depends on what application is used for the frying)
Wash and dry the chive flowers. Heat the oil to 190°C. When the oil is to temperature, add the beer to the flour and mix. Dip the chive flowers into the batter and fry for about 20 seconds or until they are golden brown. Place onto a plate with some kitchen towel to soak up the excess oil. Lightly sprinkle with salt before serving with any sauce that one desires!
Notes:
Shu Han recommends using a solid fat such as lard or coconut or palm oil, but I had none of these at hand so I just settled for plain sunflower oil.
Frying these in a deep fat fryer would be the safest way since the temperature can be controlled. I fried these using hot oil in a pan and the temperature was very difficult to control. I would recommend heating the oil to 190°C, then turning the heat off and removing the pan from the heat once you begin to fry, to prevent the temperature from soaring.
