Carmen Rueda Desserts with honey so good #35

Recipe Born in the Sea plated dessert with salicornia and fish skin by Carmen Rueda

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Brix Journey is a dessert restaurant located in Dubai and run by Spanish chef Carmen Rueda, named Best Pastry Chef 2025 by 50Best MENA (Middle East and North Africa).

As we have reported in so good.. magazine 35, Carmen’s objective there is to create a mature offering that focuses on the ingredients and accompanies them with meaning, emotions, and a story that elevates the gastronomic experience beyond a simple combination of textures and flavors. It is no easy task, as restaurants focused solely on desserts are very few and far between worldwide and require extra curiosity on the part of the public.

Born in the Sea is one of Brix Journey’s signature dishes and one that Carmen is particularly fond of. She transforms humble ingredients such as salicornia and fish skin into an elegant and deeply emotional dish, whose recipe we share exclusively on our website. The result is surprising and radically blurs the lines between sweet and savory, expanding the concept of what we understand as dessert, one of the challenges that arise daily at Brix Journey.

Discover so good #35

Born in the Sea

Pizza cracker

10 g pizza dough
2 g white sugar
0.5 g dark brown sugar
4 pcs Ebi shrimp
3 pcs salicornia

Combine the pizza dough, white sugar and dark brown sugar to form a loose dough (like sourdough started texture).

Place 1 tsp amount on the flat press machine, place 3 ebi shrimp and 4 small salicornia pieces in between two sheets of paper.

Cook in the panini press machine until slightly golden in colour and the cracker starts to feel dry, it will get crispy once it cools.

Ready to serve.

Fish skin

Fried fish skin (dry brine/curing)

Wash the fish skin (only white fish like sea bream, sea bass), remove scales and any flesh attached to it.

Place in a vacuum bag with milk and keep overnight.

Blanch the fish skin 3 times.

Then brine in a dry rub overnight (70g salt+30g sugar). – only on the flesh side of the skin, store in the chiller.

Next day, wash off the brine. Place the skins in the dehydrator.

Once dry and crispy, fry in 170C oil, until crispy (not too much colour).

Store in the dehydrator to maintain the texture.

Tuna fluid gel

70 g water
14 g tuna sauce
5.5 g Japanese agar agar

Combine the tuna sauce, water and Japanese agar agar in a pot, leave aside to bloom for two minutes.

Once bloomed, bring to a good boil.

Leave to set in the chiller and hand blend to achieve a smooth texture.

Whipped tuna cream

100 g cream
6 g tuna sauce
60 g cream cheese

Heat the cream and tuna sauce in a pan, pour over the cream cheese.

Whisk and let set.

Once, set in the chiller, transfer to a bowl and whisk to achieve a soft whipped cream texture.

On a fried fish skin, pipe 5 dots of the tuna fluid gel and 4 dots of the whipped tuna cream.

Salicornia oyster shells

Salicornia and date syrup sorbet

648 g salicornia water*
117g sugar
55 g date syrup
0.6 g xanthan
5 g stab 2000
80 g dextrose
1.2 g pectin

*salicornia water: 700 g water + 70 g salicornia

Mix 60% of the water with xanthan gum, blend and keep on the side.

Boil 40% of the water together with the sugar, Isomalt, boil it and add pectin, previously mixed with dextrose.

Boil it for 1 minute, then remove from heat, cool it down, and mix it with the 60% of water mixture.

Hand blend it, rest overnight.

Next day, add 2% yuzu juice to the entire sorbet quantity.

Freeze, churn and use.

Honey bubbles

800 g water, hot
300 g honey
2 g albumin
2 g Xanthan
20 g glycerine

Place the honey in a pan and cook till golden brown (not too dark), developing a slightly smoky flavour.

Add in the hot water and bring to a boil again.

Cool completely, add in the Xanthan, albumin and the glycerine. Rest overnight, before using.

Place the mixture in a bowl and aerate through the fish pump.

Remove the bubbles using a steel spoon.

Aloe honey pearl

44 g aloe water
2.2 g gelatine leaves
0.2 g silver powder
2 g honey sidra

Heat the strained aloe water and melt honey, add bloomed gelatine, add silver powder.

Mold in mustard ice cream mold.

In the oyster shell, prepare a big quenelle of the salicornia sorbet, make a small curve on top of the sorbet using the back of the quenelle spoon.

Place one piece of the aloe vera pearl on the curve.

Garnish around the pearl with aerated honey bubbles.

Discover these creations by Carmen Rueda in so good.. magazine 35