Cucumber flower with 5 petals

1-1 Prepare cucumber petals

Remove the end of cucumber off and cut a section 3 cm wide. After that, remove the outside of plastic wrap and give the skin a good wash.

Then, cut the cucumber section in half. If the half section that you have isn’t straight or not parallel on both sides, trim it correctly.

Firstly, slice the half cucumber with about 0.2 to 0.3 cm width, but don’t cut all the way through. You will need to keep the end of the first cut slice still connected with 0.2 cm at the bottom with the second slice. Then slice another cucumber section again, but this time cut it off.

At this point, you should have a sliced cucumber with a butterfly shape. The two slices should be connecting together still at the centre of a butterfly shape. Use the point of the paring knife to cut only the connecting skin off.

1-2 Soften cucumber and keep it fresh with salty water

Soak the sliced cucumber in a bowl of salty water to soften it for a minute. Also, the salty water will help the cucumber to look fresh on your plate. After that, take it out and place it on a chopping board. Press it from the centre of the connection gently to let it open as a circle shape.

Keep Processing from step 3 to step 5 till you have five circle-shaped cucumbers.

1-3 Making a cucumber flower base

At this stage, we will need to make a base to hold the five cucumber petals. Therefore, find a cucumber that has a section with a large diameter shrinking gradually to small diameter. However, we will cut the end of the small-diameter section off and keep the base with 3 to 3.5 cm height.

Remove the plastic wrap off from outside of the cucumber base and wash it properly. After that, use the edge finish paring knife to carve a groove on the big diameter side of about 1.5 to 2 cm deep.

Also, you will need to keep the edge with about 0.5 to 0.8 thick. As such, you will have a cucumber bowl base to support the five flower petals that you have made in 1-2 section.

1-4 Organize petals and stamen

Place the cucumber petals one at a time into the cucumber base. Let them keep a space of a half cucumber petal from each other.

Finally, carve a circle on a surface of tomato with a paring knife. The diameter of the tomato will be half the size of the cucumber base that you have done on section 1-3. As such, you are able to place it in the centre of the cucumber flower.

In addition, you are able to make a couple more five-petaled cucumber flower. Also, garnish with some small diameter sliced cucumber on your plate.