Tempura of Black Locust Flowers

Those who know me a bit better knows that I am crazy about flowers. Especially about edible ones.

So I love looking at them, smelling them and eating them.

It's Good Friday today and the bells in the churches are pealing with sorrowful tones. People who fast properly do not even eat olive oil on this day.

But this morning as I was taking Farrah out for a walk in the park I smelled the flowers from the beautiful Black Locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) that are in full bloom.

One of my favourite flowers of the season highly aromatic and usually in bloom at this time of year. The flowers are used to adorn the “Epitaphios” (tomb of Christ) and during the nightly procession on the streets of Athens the scent of the black locust flower permeates the crowds following the processions.

The tree comes from the U.S.A. but pretty much naturalised in Greece and is used in gardens all over the world.

It’s wood is also used to make furniture.

The flowers are eaten in France and Italy and in Japan they are turned into tempura.

I also read that in Romania they make a cordial from the flowers and this is something I need to try out.

So… I turned them into a tempura, a recipe I adapted from Donna Hay. Changed it a bit and added some sugar

Diffuculty: 2 of 3

Duration:40 minutes

Serves:6 people

Ingredients

60 gr all purpose flour and extra for sprinkling

60 gr cornstarch

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

2 tbsp. Sugar

2 pinches of salt

1 egg yolk

230 gr of club soda

Black locust flowers

Vegetable oil for frying

Icing sugar for dusting

Method

In a bowl we add the flours, baking soda, sugar and salt.

Mix with a spoon.

In another bowl we mix the egg yolk and the club soda with a whisk.

We empty the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with the whisk.

We do not want to overmix. Some lumps of flour will make the batter extra crispy after frying.

We prepare a big bowl with cold water and ice cubes and we place the bowl with the tempura mix in there. Tempura must always be cold.

We heat the oil to 180 Celsius.

Each cluster of flowers we first dip in some flour, then in the tempura mix and then we fry.

We flip once or twice while frying so that they take on a good colour and be nice and crunchy.

We let the excess oil drain on paper kitchen towels.

Sprinkle with the icing sugar and serve immediately.

Note. We can use the tempura mix to fry anything we like. But if we want to make tempura of savory things we do not add the sugar in the batter.

It is great for frying sea food and vegetables.