Chicory flowers as food. Calorie content and the main useful components that make up them. What healing effect does the plant have? Contraindications What can be made from it - interesting recipes. The plant's healing potential is immense, and by adding it to your diet, you can expect good health benefits. The easiest way: buy its ground into a powder root and drink instead of coffee, but not everyone likes this drink, in which case chicory flowers will come to the rescue - they are no less useful, but you can find much more options for using them in cooking.
Contraindications and harm of chicory flowers
However, before you get to know the interesting uses in chicory flower recipes, you need to make sure that you are not subject to cultural contraindications. Despite the impressive benefits, there are situations in which the plant can be harmful. Let's take a look at them.
First of all, it should be said that even the healthiest person should not abuse this product. Excessive use of chicory can lead to unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms, overexcitation, headache, etc.
Secondly, allergy sufferers need to carefully introduce the product into the diet. Individual intolerance to the components of the product is a rare practice, but still exists.
In addition, pregnant and lactating women, as well as young children, should not experiment with the plant. Despite the fact that the harm of chicory flowers for these population groups has not been identified, extra caution will not hurt, because the immune system of the fetus and small child is not formed and sometimes gives an unpredictable response.
With extreme caution, the product is introduced into the diet of people suffering from severe diseases of the digestive, cardiovascular and nervous systems, as well as the liver and respiratory organs. The dosage in this case plays a major role: the correct one can help in treatment, the wrong one, on the contrary, aggravate the situation.
Note! If you have any diseases not mentioned above and / or you are taking certain medications, the question of introducing chicory flowers into the diet should be discussed with your doctor.
Chicory flower recipes
So, if you are convinced that the contraindications of the product do not apply to you, it's time to find out how chicory flowers are used in cooking. I must say that this practice is, in principle, quite popular in haute cuisine. There are many national dishes with flowers: for example, in Italy pumpkin flowers are baked, in India they adore desserts made from rose petals. But how can you use chicory flowers in the kitchen? There are, in fact, a lot of options. Fresh they can be added to salad, dried - used as a seasoning. This unusual spice will especially well complement the baking dough, imparting a pleasant aroma to pies and biscuits. And, of course, chicory flowers can simply become a wonderful decoration and addition to any dessert.
Let's take a look at some interesting recipes:
- Chicory cookies … Mix flour (250 grams) with baking soda (1/2 teaspoon), dried and ground chicory flowers (1 teaspoon), cinnamon, vanilla sugar, salt and coriander (pinch each). Separately in a bowl, combine softened butter (50 grams), sugar (100 grams) and sour cream (5 tablespoons), whisk the mixture a little. Add the combined dry ingredients to it. The dough will turn out thick - mold balls from them and roll them in sesame seeds (4 tablespoons) and brown sugar (50 grams). Line a baking sheet with baking paper, place the balls at a distance of 5-10 centimeters from each other and turn each into a flat cookie. Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
- Fresh chicory salad … Chop random young chicory shoots (100 grams), bell pepper (1 piece) and cucumber (1 piece) into thin strips. Combine the ingredients and season with olive oil, then sprinkle with lemon juice and garnish with flowers.
- Chicory garnish … Rinse well and dry young shoots and chicory flowers (200 grams). Heat butter (30-50 grams) in a frying pan, fry finely chopped red onion (1 piece) in it, then add chicory and pour in a little water. Simmer until soft, add dill (20 grams), lemon juice (2-3 tablespoons), salt and add your favorite spices. Let the dish steep a little and serve with sour cream or creamy sauce.
- Dessert chicory flowers … Take the right amount of flowers, rinse them thoroughly and dry them. Whisk the egg whites in a bowl. Take a cooking brush and dab each petal with it, then sprinkle generously with powdered sugar. Leave the flowers to dry on foil at room temperature for 24 hours. You can decorate any dessert with ready-made flowers.
Note! Science does not yet have a final opinion on the correct classification of chicory flowers, some say that this is a food product, the second is a medicinal plant, and others are both a food product and a medicine at the same time. However, one way or another, such doubts lead to one very important conclusion: it is worth very carefully approaching the issue of dosage of flowers in the diet, so as not to turn their benefit into harm.
Interesting facts about chicory
In many countries, chicory is endowed with magical properties, one of the most interesting beliefs is that the plant can make a person invisible.
In the Middle Ages, it was a favorite product of peasants, they prepared syrups from it, added it to salads, and in order to make the bitterness not pronounced, they flavored them with a dressing of butter and honey.
In our country, there are many alternative names for chicory: petrov batog, shcherbak, roadside grass, blue flower, black companion, etc.
In Poland, Slovenia and Bulgaria, the culture is called "the bride of the sun", because the flowers of the plant always turn after the heavenly body, walking across the sky.
Shoots and flowers of chicory are best harvested at the end of summer, and dried directly in the sun. It is preferable to dig out the roots in late September or early spring. Collecting is necessary only in ecologically clean areas.
Topical application of chicory can help relieve skin problems, including complex rashes, irritations and boils.
Watch the video about chicory:
Chicory is known to most of us as a coffee substitute powder, which is prepared from the root of the plant. However, it turns out that its flowers can also serve as food and are of great benefit. It definitely makes sense to add them to your diet, especially if you have health problems of one kind or another, but it is very important not to overuse the product. Chicory contains in its composition many biologically active components, which, if taken in moderation into the body, contribute to the improvement of its work, and if excessive, on the contrary, can cause negative consequences.
