Vegetable Galette

If I had put Broccoli Galette in the title line, you'd never have read this post, would you? This is a great dinner or lunch. You can make a galette with almost any vegetable: roasted zucchini, squash or peppers, caramelized onions, slow-cooked broccoli. The original recipe, from Baking with Julia, used sliced tomatoes with parmesan and basil - very nice.

The galette pastry is a great dough to have in your repertoire as it works well in savory and sweet preparations.

Basic Vegetable Galette

Cornmeal Galette Dough (from Baking With Julia)

• 3 tablespoons sour cream, yogurt or cream
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons butter, cut into 8 or so slices
  

Stir the sour cream into 1/3 cup of ice water and set aside.

In a food processor, blend together the flour, cornmeal and salt. Toss the butter onto the flour mixture and pulse in the food processor until the butter is cut into the flour mixture.

While pulsing the food processor, pour the sour cream mixture through the feed tube until absorbed. The dough will be very wet. Scrape the dough onto a sheet of wax paper. If you want two small galettes (6-8"), divide the dough into two pieces. For a large galette (14" or so), leave the dough in one piece. Wrap the dough in wax paper and put into the fridge. This dough is really damp and is easier to work if it's cold. You can also wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and freeze the dough for later.

To make a galette:

On well-floured surface, roll out the dough into two 9-10" circle, or one 15" circle (about 1/8" thick). If the dough is too cold and cracks, let it rest for 10 minutes on the counter. If you

Put the pastry on a baking sheet and lay your filling on the center (you will need about 2-3 cups of filling for a large galette, about 1 1/2 cups for a small one. You want to leave 2" or so uncovered; this gets folded back over the top (see picture above). This galette had 3 cups of slow-cooked broccoli in it and was sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese (if I'd had any, I would have put some goat cheese on this one).

Fold the uncovered dough over the filling; it will pleat itself neatly into place as you fold it over. Bake the galette at 425 until browned, about 20 minutes.

Filling tips:

• Any flavorful vegetable preparation will work well. In the past I have used: roasted peppers, zucchini and squash, thinly sliced potatoes, caramelized onions, asparagus. Just make sure that any raw ingredients are sliced thinly enough to cook through in the short baking time.
• Cheese is a nice addition. Good choices: cheddar, goat, feta, parmesan, mozzarella, dry ricotta.
• Your fillings shouldn't be too wet. This dough isn't very thick and doesn't put up much of a fight against runny ingredients. If you are using dampish ingredients (sliced zucchini or mushrooms, for instance), put a thin layer of toasted breadcrumbs under the vegetables.