We are lucky as the Yale Sustainable farm supplies us with fluffy squash blossoms right around the corner. We feature tempura with yogurt sauce and in our summer squash risotto with creme fraiche, almond milk, lemon & rye

Squash blossoms are delicious with tomatoes, cheese, and seafood particularly, so those are our most common pairings with squash blossoms. Usually, we stuff them with a farce made of cheese (goat cheese and cream cheese being favored) with our without herbs and seafood. We use a standard old Carolina Rice Kitchen rice flour batter, with club soda as the wetting agent for lightness, to dip the blossoms and fry them in hot oil. The rice flour batter gives the lightest snap and just great delicate crispness without tending to brown too quickly. These fried blossoms are super rich so sauces tend to be either very acidic or very pungent to go with. I love Sherry vinegar preparations with squash blossoms. The other preparation we often do with squash blossoms requires very fully opened, developed blossoms with mature stamen. These come with a lot of pollen and pigment, and the best flavor. Most farmers pick squash blossoms too early for full stamen development so when I am able to get them, I like to use them to make a sauce. The best is a vinaigrette made simply in the Vitaprep by pureeing the blossoms, adding sherry vinegar, sunflower oil, and a little egg yolk for emulsification. The resulting sauce is a bright sunny yellow and is great for dressing white-fleshed fish, tomatoes, or eggplant dishes.

At Urban Union, I stuff squash blossoms with a mixture of goat cheese, herbs and shallots. I then beer batter them and fry til crispy. Served with marinated cherry tomatoes and an almond/parsley pesto.