Not only do flowers add a lot of flavour to your recipes but they look beautiful too. There are easy ways to add flowers to your main dishes, your soups, salads, desserts and appetisers. Cooking with flowers makes bouquets so good you can eat them. Go ahead and eat them, they are yummy.
Certainly not every flower is something that you can cook and eat but there are a large variety of flowers that are really very tasty. They add the decorative quality to your dishes and even nutritional value. There is nothing quite as lovely as flower petals floating in soup. When you want to impress your dinner guests, remember to make a visit to the florist for some edible flowers to add to your recipes.
Try to find flowers that are organically grown. Ask your florist what they recommend and how they would suggest you use the flowers in your cooking. Always be sure to wash them carefully like you do with your vegetables that you cook.
As a general rule for dishes that are sweet try using violets, citrus or apple blossoms and carnation petals. Main dishes do well with broccoli florets and herbs. Vegetables that have edible flowers are arugula, okra, broccoli, fennel, and the male squash flowers. The flowers of the arugula have a nutty taste like horseradish. The whole fennel plant is edible and the flowers taste like aniseed which goes well with salmon.
It is commonly known that the flowers of herbs add a fresh flavor to dishes. The herbs that have edible flowers are lavender, mint, basil, dill, sage, chives, thyme and rosemary. Sugar made from lavender makes an excellent sweetener for making tea, jelly and cookies. The rosemary has little buds that are good for cooking with any meat or can be added to salads. The flowers of dill go well in an omelettes while the flowers of the dandelion appear buttery but taste of pepper. The flowers of the chive have a gentle onion taste and they have a crunch when you bit into them so they are great for salads.
Edible flowers form the ornamental flower group are calendula, day lilies, pansies, hollyhock, impatiens, nasturtiums, violets, Bergamot, chamomile, tulips, scented geraniums and violas. These are all wonderful for cooking but the day lilies do have a laxative effect so caution needs to be taken.
The petals are good floating in soup or spicing up salads. Hollyhock flowers can be crystallized and used to garnish desserts. Rice dishes, omelettes, breads and souffles are even better with calendula. Nasturtiums have a peppery and sweet flavour good with cheese or guacamole. Day lilies have the flavor of asparagus and go will with soup or a stir-fry.
Trees and shrubs that produce flowers also have edible types like honeysuckle, roses, plum, peach, pear, apple and hibiscus. The petals of roses make a candy when crystallized and can also be made into a jam or jelly. Cakes decorating is always much better when edible flowers are used for embellishments. No matter which flower you would like to try, it is best buy them from a florist you trust.
For a wide variety of flowers to choose from for the perfect gift, visit Adam Fowler's Online Florist at ModeFlowers.com!
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