I love to surprise my friends by tossing flowers into my salads. I recently did this to the salad mix I received in my Stoney Plains Organic Farm CSA subscription.
People are used to eating red, yellow, and orange nasturtiums. But, blue starry flowers sprinkled amongst the greens catches them off guard.
"What are those?! Can we really eat them?!"
"Yes. And, they taste so wonderfully fresh almost like cucumbers!"
The flowers are delicate. I pluck the whole flower from the stem and separate the fuzzy sepals from the blue petals. The sepals are underneath the petals, also called a calyx as an entire unit. Here is a photo showing these different parts of the flower: the corolla (petal unit) and calyx (sepal unit). A little botany terminology never hurts!
The petals will easily fall off as you're gathering them for your summertime salad. Since the calyx's texture is too fuzzy for some, I only add the petals. If they aren't separating for you, just add the whole thing. Don't worry since the salad dressing will most likely mask the texture. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment