Provençal courgette flower stuffed with aromatic tapioca

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Pascal Aussignac's characteristic love of bright and beautiful presentation shines through in this tapioca-stuffed courgette flower recipe. Using a steam oven set to 100% steam will give you the best results for this dish - in order to soften the flower and gently cook the stem until tender.

First published in 2015

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

Courgette flowers

  • 4 courgette flowers

Aromatic tapioca

Crispy quinoa

  • 30g of quinoa
  • 200ml of vegetable oil, for frying quinoa

Sauce

To serve

  • 1 handful of rocket, or glacial leaves

Equipment

  • Fine strainer
  • Steam oven

Method

1
To start the dish, make the tapioca pearls. Bring a large pan of water to the boil (at least 1 litre per 100g of tapioca). Once the water is boiling, add the tapioca, whisk to stop it from sticking and cook for 5 minutes
  • 180g of tapioca
2
Strain the tapioca, rinse with cold water and stir through some olive oil to stop the pearls sticking together
  • 40g of olive oil
3
If using a Miele steam oven, place the peas and broad beans on a perforated steam container and steam at 100˚C for 1 minute and refresh later in iced water
4
To make the sauce, put the carrots and orange through a juicer or liquidizer. Add the juice to a pan with the orange, Campari, garlic and lemon. Cook for 10 minutes
5
Pass the contents of the pan through a sieve into a clean pan and reduce the liquid on a low heat until it resembles a thin syrup. Add the bitters and lemon juice to taste. Add butter if you wish to make the sauce more of a glaze, but do not add not too much or the sauce will weaken in flavour
  • 3 drops of Angostura bitters
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 1 knob of butter, optional
6
Carefully remove the stamens from the courgette flowers and carefully spoon in the tapioca mix until two thirds full
  • 4 courgette flowers
7
For the crispy quinoa, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the quinoa for 15 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, refresh in cold water and allow to dry
8
Add the vegetable oil to a small pot and bring to 180˚C. Deep-fry the quinoa for 3-5 minutes, then strain onto some paper towel. Leave to cool and dry
  • 200ml of vegetable oil, for frying quinoa
9
Set your steam oven to 100˚C and to a steam setting of 100% - the best result will come from cooking the stuffed courgette flowers as fast as possible
10
Place the flowers onto an oven tray and steam for 2-3 minutes. If the stem of the flower is just cooked - then it's ready, if not, place back into the oven for an additional 1 minute
11
Remove the flowers from the oven and place onto plates. Pour the glazed orange sauce around the flowers and serve with the crispy quinoa and glacial or rocket leaves
  • 1 handful of rocket, or glacial leaves
First published in 2015

Pascal Aussignac left France with business partner Vincent Labeyrie to champion 'la cuisine de Gascogne' at his restaurant, Club Gascon, in 1998.

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