Enid Donaldson MignotteBRING THE great outdoors inside with appetisers and salads made with springs fresh blossoms, flavoured by marigolds and garnished with a nasturtium. Served with crackers and nasturtium leaves, the blooms and more than just colour, they have a peppery flavour that perks up the more bland salad greens.
They won't form a foundation of nutrition for one's regular diet, granted but it's fun to play with your food now and then, and a lovely salad blooming with spring flowers will make a refreshing change from the usual greens and vinaigrette.
Blossoms can be used to colour and flavour vinegars and teas, and to make seasoned butters and sauces for vegetables. To make geranium butter, for example, stir together 3/4 cup softened butter, 1 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste) definitely less if you use salted butter) and 2 teaspoons minced geranium leaves. Lemon or rose geranium may be used.
A herb sauce for vegetables may also be made with geraniums. Make a white sauce from 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup flour, stirring them together over moderate heat to form a bubbly but not brown roux.
All at once stir in two cups milk 450g, 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional), 8 whole geranium leaves and 8 tablespoons minced fresh parsley. Heat the mixture, stirring it constantly, until it thickens. Remove the geranium leaves before serving the sauce over vegetables.
The idea of cooking with flowers is nothing new. They have been used for centuries to flavour teas, to make jellies and in folk medicine decoctions.
According to Zack Hanle, author of "Cooking with flavours" (Price-Stern-Sloan Publishers, Inc., Los Angeles 1971). The English in Shakespeare's time dined on stewed primroses, gilly flowers carnation cordial and violet and rose water.
Hanle lists among edible flowers (carnations) chrys-anthemums, dandelions, day lilies, elder flowers, marigolds, nasturtiums, roses, squash flowers, violets and yuccas.
Carnations have a lovelike flavour. Chrysanthemums are familiar to Chinese cooks, who float petals on hot broth.
Dandelion greens are familiar as salad ingredients, but the roots can be used in soups and the flowers made into dandelion wine.
When making this dandelion wine, Hanle suggests you pick the flowers from an open field that has just opened.
They're at their best in early spring when the leaves are still tender. Use the leaves in salad, only the flowers are used in the wine.
Dandelion wine
(2 litres) 2 quarts dandelion
flowers
(4 litres) 4 quarts water
(230ml) 1 cup orange juice
(3 tbsps) lemon juice
(3 tbsps) lime juice
8 whole cloves
1/2 tsp. powdered ginger
3 tbsp coarsely chopped orange zest
(coloured part of peel)
1 tbsp coarsely chopped lemon zest
(1.2 kg) 3 lbs granulated sugar
1/4 cake compressed dried yeast
(50ml) 1/4 cup warm water
Wash and pick over the blossoms. Combine them with the water, orange, lemon and lime juice.
Add the cloves, ginger, orange and lemon zest and sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil, lower the heat and simmer it for 1 hour. Strain through a filter paper (such as coffee filter paper).
Let the mixture stand until it is just warm and stir in yeast. Let it stand overnight and pour into bottles, after 3 weeks, cork and store the wine in a cool place. Makes 8 pints.
Eggs marigold
6 hard cooked eggs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
salt, pepper to taste
2 dried marigold, petals
crushed
12 fresh marigolds
Peel the eggs, cut them in half, lengthways and remove the yolks. Mash the yolks with mayonnaise,, salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the crushed marigold petals. Refill the egg whites with the yolk mixture. Remove the petals from the fresh marigold and tuck them into the centres of the stuffed eggs, arranging them so each egg half resembles a marigold.
Marigold
cheese dip
Use 1 large pkg cream cheese,
softened
(8 oz) 1 cup sour cream or
evaporated milk
1 tsp. sherry
1 tsp. minced fresh onion
1 tbsp fresh marigold petals
finely chopped
Blend the cheese, cream and sherry to form a smooth mixture. Add the onion, marigold petals, stirring to make a smooth mixture. If desired, stir in salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate the spread for at least 1 hour before serving - Copley.
Happy Cooking!
