Daylily Fritters
Listen... to what the flower people say
Hi! I’m posting this newsletter from a year ago because a) most of you had not yet subscribed back then and b) it’s daylily season. I’m making it free for all, too. Enjoy!
Daylilies are flowering all over the place around here, bright orange blooms floating over dense tufts of long green leaves. Whether growing wild along roadsides or in more deliberate domestic landscapes, they signify high summer. Did you know that besides being beautiful, they’re edible? Tuber, flower, unopened bud—all good to eat.
The tubers are good from the fall through early spring, when they’ve stored up all that photosynthetic energy for the winter. Summer is the time to devour the flowers. Pluck the petals off and scatter them in a salad, preferably after dressing and laying it out in a wide, flat dish. The unopened buds make good pickles—try packing them into a recently emptied jar of cornichons, hot banana pepper, or pepperoncini brine for an uber-easy treat (let them sit for a day or three before eating).
Eyeing the presence of mozzarella and anchovies in the fridge, I hankered for squash flowers to stuff them into. But I planted my squash seeds late, so they’re not flowering yet. I grabbed some lilies and got to work, tucking a chunk of mozz, a fish fillet, and a bee balm flower (the y-shaped magenta ones in the photo) into each flower after I pulled the pistils out to make room.
This batter is a variation on the one I used for the field garlic pancakes: sourdough starter with an egg and a fat pinch of salt beaten in, but this time with about a teaspoon of baking soda added for lightness and crunch, giving it more of a tempura vibe. Because starter is acidic—that would be the “sour” part—the reaction is rapid and dramatic, turning the batter into a foamy delight. If you don’t have sourdough starter, you can make a simple tempura or beer batter.
Lily petals have a pronounced curve to them, so you need to use the batter as an adhesive of sorts to coax them closer to their unopened shape, surrounding the filling like a cocoon. You can deep-fry these, but there’s no need. They do fine in a skillet with a thin layer of oil, though they do end up flatter as a result. I garnished them with bee balm and two kinds of oregano flowers. You can absolutely dip these in anything from chutney to chile oil, but with both cheese and fish inside they don’t need anything.
I spent summers in the north Georgia mountains, and snacked on day lilies during many a hike. But it never occurred to me to treat them like zucchini flowers before now. Brilliant!