Cucumber and coriander savory tart

Eva, author of Bake-Street , brings us a cake that you can prepare both as a first course and as a dessert. It is a salty cucumber and coriander tart, with a cocoa base that fits the bill! It tells you in detail how to make it. You will surprise!

Several months ago I saw a chef's cake on his social networks and I was fascinated. It was a savory cucumber and coriander tart with fresh cucumber blossoms soaked in gin. Since his job is to design dishes, as well as working as a consultant, his recipes are not shared.

I kept the idea of ​​its preparation, which I find incredibly inspiring, and I made my own cucumber and coriander tart. Of course, without the gin... nothing suits me, although it sure gives you your point.

To carry it out I based myself on the traditional cucumber soup that we can have in summer but I took it to the tart version, working with it in the same way that we would do with a panna cotta .

The texture of the cake should be creamy , without lumps or pieces inside. So we will incorporate the cucumber into juice, processing the pulp and letting it drain well. We will process all the ingredients well so that no small portion remains in the mixture.

I made the base with cocoa powder , which you can substitute for carob if you prefer. The original tart has a white dough, like a traditional sablée, but I thought that a darker color and a stronger flavor would suit it.

Tokyo Design Studio porcelain bowls , perforated baking tray and Bérard olive wood flour spoon

It is a cake that we can leave prepared in advance and decorate just when we are going to serve it. We can adapt the decoration to our tastes. It would have been great to decorate it with coriander flowers, but it's really hard to find them.

So a bit of laminated cucumber, edible flowers and dill is the suggestion that I leave you.

INGREDIENTS (for a 24.5cm diameter ring)

For the base:

• 180g of loose wheat flour
• 25g of cocoa powder
• 25g ground toasted hazelnut
• 130g of butter
• 1 egg L
• 30g of brown sugar
• 2g of salt

For the cucumber and cilantro filling:

• 200g of natural Greek yogurt
• 200g of liquid cream to mount
• 20g of lime juice
• 250gr of cucumber juice (500gr of cucumber approx.)
• 10g of fresh coriander
• 2g jalapeno
• 2g of fresh garlic
• black pepper to taste
• 6 sheets of gelatin or fish glue

To decorate:

• fresh cucumber
• Dill
• comestible flowers

ELABORATION

Prepare the cocoa base:

1. Grate the cold butter, reserve.
2. In a large bowl add the flour together with the cocoa powder, the ground toasted hazelnut, the grated butter and the salt, we begin to mix the ingredients with the fingertips until we obtain a sandy mixture.
3. Add the muscovado sugar, the egg and mix slightly.
4. Transfer the dough to a work surface and finish working it using the fraisage technique. It will help us to obtain a homogeneous dough but without developing gluten: we rest the "heel" of the hand on the dough and slide the dough forward little by little, so that it amalgamates but without obtaining an elastic result.
5. Once it is homogeneous, we will stretch the dough between two sheets of Teflon or baking paper. We will give it a thickness of 3 mm, for this we will use an adjustable roller .
6. We leave the dough covered with the Teflon sheets or paper, place it on a tray and put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.

We bake the base of the cake in white:

1. Remove the teflon sheets and place the dough on a sheet of baking paper.
2. With the help of the baking ring itself (24.5cm), we cut the base and leave it unmoved so that it stays there.
3. We cut strips the height of the ring and place around it to create the edges. Do not worry if you have to cut several strips, they fit perfectly and after baking the joints are not visible.
4. We will adjust the edges to the ring and the base, but without touching too much so that it does not lose its shape. Prick the base slightly with the help of a fork.
5. We pass the sheet with the ring on a tray (I have put it directly on the perforated baking tray ) and put it in the refrigerator for 30-40 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 175ºC with heat up and down.
7. We take the mold out of the cold, cover it with baking paper and arrange weights on the surface (as weights you can use ceramic baking balls or dried chickpeas).
8. We introduce at half height and bake for 15-20 minutes.
9. We remove the weights and bake for 5 more minutes so that the base dries.
10. Take out, being careful not to burn ourselves and let cool completely.

De Buyer perforated ring , ceramic baking balls , perforated baking tray and Pallarès knife .

Prepare the cucumber juice:

1. We wash and dry the cucumbers, cut and discard only the ends, cut into slices with the skin included and process in a food processor .
2. We place the puree in a wide strainer, with a bowl below, and let it drain very well. We can leave it around 30 minutes or even a little more.
3. Reserve the cucumber juice and store the pulp* in an airtight container.

*With it we can make a wonderful Tzatziki sauce!

Prepare the pie filling:

1. In the blender glass, add the Greek yogurt together with the cream, the cucumber juice, the lime juice, the garlic, the jalapeño, the cilantro, the salt and the black pepper. Process until a homogeneous mixture is obtained.
2. Place over medium heat and leave until it breaks into a slight boil.
3. In a large bowl, hydrate the gelatin sheets with very cold water. Let soak for about 15 minutes. During this time we will let the cream mixture reduce its temperature until it reaches 50ºC.
4. Drain the gelatin very well and incorporate it into the mixture that we had reserved. Mix very well with the help of some rods until completely dissolved.
5. Pour the mixture over the dough that we had in the ring and put it in the refrigerator. We will leave a minimum of 4 hours for it to settle, although the ideal is to leave it until the next day.

We decorate the cake just before serving:

1. With the help of a mandolin , we cut longitudinal slices of cucumber. Divide into 3 parts with the help of a knife and roll on itself to form small flowers. We have on the surface of the cake.
2. We finish with some edible flowers and some sprigs of fresh dill.
3. We serve.

This salty cucumber and coriander tart is a different way to surprise at home, that we not only have to do beautiful things when we have guests! We can serve it as a starter and enjoy our first course as if it were dessert… Bon appetit!

NOTE: For those who are curious to know who was the chef who made the cake that inspired me, you can see it here .