TIP OF THE DAY: Make A Savory Galette
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Shoo the winter blues away with a colorful galette.
In the pastry world, a galette is a rustic, open-face pie, made without a pie pan. It is flat, with a turned-up crust that wraps around the filling to create a “dough pan.” It can be round, square or oblong. Galette (gah-LET)—called crostata in Italian and rustic pie or rustic tart in English—hails from the days before people had pie plates, and the days after that when only the kitchens of the wealthy had them. Way before then, the precursor of the galette probably dates from the Neolithic Age, a.k.a. the New Stone Age, which lasted from about 10,200 B.C.E.and ending between 4,500 and 2,000 B.C.E. Thick cereal pastes—barley, oats, rye, wheat—were sweetened with honey and spread on hot stones to cook. The recipe below, from Vermont Creamery, uses their Spreadable Goat Cheese and Unsalted Cultured Butter. It can be served as a light lunch or brunch with salad and soup, or as a first course at dinner. |
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The Most Exquisite Butter Palates, take note: Vermont Creamery’s cultured butter is churned to 86% butterfat. This is higher than most other butters available and creates an especially flaky and delicious pie crust. Supermarket butter is 80% butterfat, and most European-style butters are 82%-84%. We’ve only seen the 86% varieties from Vermont Creamery and California’s Straus Family Creamery. If you want the best butter, this is it. And, we must note: Our favorite butter for bread is Vermont Creamery’s Cultured Salted Butter. It’s amazing: We never use salted butter unless it’s this one, with the lightest touch of sea salt. It’s irresistible. See the different types of butter in our Butter Glossary. |
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RECIPE: BEET & SWEET POTATO GALETTE
Ingredients For The Crust 1. PREHEAT the oven to 375°F. 2. PEEL the sweet potato and beet, then slice them into 1/8-inch-thick rounds. Set them aside on separate plates, to keep the beets from bleeding onto the sweet potato slices. |
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3. PLACE the flour in large bowl and add the salt; stir to combine. Add the butter. Using two fork, knives or a hand-held dough blender, cut the butter into the flour, gently mixing to ensure that every crumb of butter is pea size and coated in flour. Once the butter is combined… 4. ADD the ice water one tablespoon at a time, mixing until the dough begins to take shape. Gently knead with your fingers to help bring the dough together. If needed, add additional water a little at a time. Once the dough is formed… 5. SHAPE it into a disk and roll it into a rough circle on a piece of parchment, to a uniform thickness of ¼ inch. If you have trouble creating a uniform thickness, consider a pie crust mold for “perfect crusts every time.” 6. SPREAD the goat cheese onto the dough, leaving an inch border around the edge. Layer rounds of the cut sweet potato and beets on top of goat cheese. Gently fold the bare edge of dough inwards on top of the layered vegetables, working around the entire circle. 7. SPRINKLE the top of the galette with fresh thyme, salt and pepper and bake for 40–50 minutes, or until vegetables are cooked through and the crust is golden. Serve it hot from the oven, at room temperature or in-between.
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