recipe
Zucchini and ricotta tart
When midsummer rolls around and the novelty of the first zucchinis has faded, you may find yourself in your garden looking down a prickly stem at the monster zucchini you missed during your most recent harvest.
What to do with such a giant? If you’re tired of grilling, shaving and roasting, this tart is for you, because you’d hate to miss out on using one of nature’s best fruits. Yes, fruit! And for those who are buying rather than growing their own zucchinis, it’s a summer treat not to be missed.
The water content of zucchini is the thing to keep in mind when cooking this squash relative. For the filling of this tart, the zucchini is grated and the excess moisture squeezed out. The size of the fruit isn’t an issue in this case, but if you are using a zucchini with larger seeds, remove them first.
This tart is light and crisp and the perfect base recipe to build upon by adding herbs and leftover bits of ham or chicken.
The pastry roughly follows a three, two, one recipe – an age-old ratio of flour, butter and water that results in a dough that’s easy to roll and handle. The butter is half the amount of flour, and the water is around a third the quantity of flour by weight.
Time: 45 minutes preparation + 30 minutes resting + 50-60 minutes cooking
Serves 6-8
Pastry (makes enough for two 22cm x 4cm-deep tart shells)
- pinch salt
- 400g flour
- 200g butter, cubed
- 130g water, cold
- extra flour for dusting
Filling
- 2 zucchinis (based on a medium-sized supermarket zucchini)
- 400g ricotta
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 2 tbsp grated parmesan
- 1 lemon, zested
- salt, to taste
- pepper, to taste
- Mix the salt through the flour and then pinch the butter into the flour mix until it resembles flaky breadcrumbs. A few obvious butter streaks are a good thing.
- Add the cold water to the flour. Stir with your fingers to hydrate the flour, then, once the water has started to be absorbed, begin to press to bring the dough together. Don’t over-mix or knead the dough. Once there are no dry sections of flour, press the pastry into a flat disc, wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Line the base of a 22-centimetre by four-centimetre-deep tart ring and lightly butter the sides. (There is enough pastry and filling that if you have a larger tart ring, the recipe will still work.)
- Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180ºC.
- Place the disc of rested pastry onto a lightly floured surface, then dust the top of the pastry. Roll to three-millimetre thickness then line the tart ring with the rolled-out pastry.
- Line the inside of the tart pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beads. Blind-bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes.
- Begin making the filling by grating the zucchini on the coarse side of the grater into a bowl. Take handfuls of the grated zucchini and squeeze out the excess moisture, placing what’s in your hand into another bowl. Discard the liquid.
- Once the tart shell has been blind-baked, remove the paper and baking beads and return to the oven to cook for a further eight to 10 minutes, until just starting to turn golden. Remove the shell from the oven and reduce the temperature to 170ºC.
- Add the remaining filling ingredients to the bowl, season and then stir to incorporate.
- Pour the filling into the tart shell and place the tart in the oven for 25-28 minutes until cooked through but with the centre still having a slight wobble.
- Remove the tart from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before cutting.
- Serve with salad and a simple dressing.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on January 10, 2026 as "Marrow-minded".
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