A flower dreamed one night…
If you ask Heinz Beck for a dish that represents his cooking philosophy, he answers without hesitation: courgette flower. A dish that dates back to 1997 and that he has always kept on the menu. “It's a difficult dish with open fried courgette flower. I had to do a lot of tests to be able to achieve what I wanted. We worked on it for three months to be able to obtain a perfect balance, a harmony of all the components. Then one night when I couldn't sleep, inspiration struck me. It is a sunny and delicate dish, a dish where there is technique, but also a lot of beauty.
Ingredients:
Courgette flowers
110 g of flour
60 g of clarified butter
100ml of Beer
2 egg whites
4 courgette flowers
Extra virgin olive oil
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Zucchini puree
300 g of courgettes
1 Onion, small
Extra virgin olive oil
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Shellfish consommé
1 kg of lobster and scampi carcasses
1 carrot
2 sticks of celery
½ Fennel
2 Tomatoes for gravy
1 g of saffron
4 egg whites
1,5 liters of lobster broth
Plate garnish
2 quail eggs
80 g of Caviar
Procedure:
Zucchini flowers:
Prepare the batter by mixing the melted butter well with the flour and beer. Leave to rest for about 1 hour at room temperature. Incorporate the whipped egg whites and salt.
Dip the courgette flowers after removing the pistil, making sure they remain open, and fry them in hot oil.
Zucchini puree:
Clean the courgettes, cut them in half, remove the seeds, cut them in half, salt them lightly and leave to rest for about 3 hours. Then stew them in a saucepan with the onion sautéed in a little oil and blend everything.
The shellfish consomméPreparation: Pass the lobster carcasses, scampi and vegetables through a meat grinder and put everything in a saucepan. Add the freshly beaten egg whites, the cold lobster broth and mix. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about half an hour on a very low flame. Filter everything, add the saffron and adjust the salt.
Preparation of the dish.
Cook the quail eggs in boiling water for one and a half minutes. Cool them, shell them and cut them in half. Arrange a spoonful of zucchini puree in the center of the plates, place a fried zucchini flower on top of each one and fill it with a little zucchini puree. Arrange the quail eggs and caviar on top, then pour the shellfish and saffron consommé. Serve immediately
