Let’s try today risotto with edible spring flowers, perfect for this season!
Our lawns and gardens begin to fill with spring flowers. In compliance with the appeal of doctors and institutions not to leave home (the motto must always be #iorestoacasa), with the Italian website dedicated to risotto and its recipes, Risotto.us, let’s see which edible flowers can be used for this delicious dish. For those lucky enough to have a flower garden, this is an idea to colour their spring recipes.
What flowers are edible?
Edible flowers in the past were mainly used for sweets and cakes. Today the interest in this colourful ingredient is shifting more and more towards savoury recipes, especially towards risotto. Well, having said that, which is the edible flower list?
A classic is, for example, the risotto with primroses that are widespread in this season, both in jars and spontaneous. They are, among other things, edible plants that are simple to manage and require little maintenance.
Among the most common edible flowers we find for example the yarrow, the orange and the borage. But it is not difficult to get calendula, chamomile, wisteria flowers and, later in the seasons, chrysanthemum.
Very popular in our meadows are also dandelion, daisy, violet and poppy. In our gardens or on the balconies it is easy to find jasmine, geranium, lavender (the recipe for lavender risotto is very famous!), magnolia, tulip and rose. Among the edible flowers we also find dahlia, carnation, sunflower, iris, locust and elderberry.
Risotto with edible spring flowers
A simple and quick recipe is that of borage risotto: it is based on the use of a spontaneous plant known for its antioxidant properties. Both borage leaves and borage flowers are used in the recipe. The pairing can be more sophisticated, with the addition of prosecco and goat cheese, or more tasty with sausage or gorgonzola cheese.
Today it can be done with frozen blueberries or greenhouse blueberries, but in early summer the risotto with blueberry and rose petals will certainly be a delicious dish. Rose petals should only be inserted while creaming the risotto, so that they release the floral notes at the last moment and soften.
In a few weeks, usually around May, wisteria will bloom. Edible wisteria flowers can be used in risotto with fontina, thyme and wisteria flowers, a delicate recipe that combines ingredients with a fresh and aromatic flavour. Also in this case, the flowers must be inserted fresh as a final decoration and thus contribute to a spring explosion of flavours in the risotto.
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