I love summer at the farmer’s market.  Suddenly the market explodes with fruit and vegetables, as kale and chard give way to tomatoes, peaches and squash. Bison Brewery is getting into a very summer farmer’s market state of mind too with their organic summer seasonal, Honey Basil Ale.

This unique brew is brewed with honey and “dry hopped”  (or would it be, dry basiled?) with basil leaves.  According to brewer/owner Dan Del Grande (full disclosure: Dan graciously sent me a bottle so that I might taste some), it contains 100 pounds of basil macerated using a pizza docker, to make sure the essential oils were released into the beer.  The result is a beer with a strong amber malt backbone, hints of honey, and a floral, herbal aroma from the basil.  The aromatic quality of the basil lends an almost menthol-like quality to the nose, but it isn’t present at all in the beer, which has a more traditional basil character.

It seemed only natural then to raid the local farmer’s market looking for fresh, organic produce to go with this organic beer. We came back with one of my favorites: squash blossoms.  It seemed only natural to stuff them with ricotta, thai basil, and honey before tempura battering them and frying.

These are super easy to make, and are sure to impress.  Think of the inside of the flowers as a vessel, begging to be filled with your flavor combinations.  The flowers are more texture and structure than taste.

We (and by “we” I mean, Elianna, who is much better at not destroying the flowers than me) simply clean the flowers off, remove the stamen from inside, and stuff. We used a combination of Thai Basil, fresh ricotta, local wildflower honey (from a bear) and a touch of salt.  That’s it.

After the flowers are stuffed, twist the petals together to seal the bundle, and dip into a tempura batter.  We made our using some homebrew saison – but I bet it’s be even better using Bison brew which was the inspiration for the dish.  We just had a limited amount, and wanted to drink it. After a dip in the batter, it’s into 375 degree oil until GBD – golden brown and delicious.

It only takes a minute on each side, then evacuate to a draining rig, and generously sprinkle with kosher salt.  We liked to do all of this with the stems on, since it makes them easy to handle.

And if we’ve played our cards right…

Yes! perfectly crisp, and the flower has help everything in so that the cheese is melted and gooey, the batter is light and crisp, and oil hasn’t drowned the whole thing.  Delicious.  Drizzle with a touch more honey, and serve  on a summer afternoon with a cold  Bison Honey & Basil Ale.

Tags: bison, organic, squash blossoms

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Flickr, Taste Test. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.