Ragstone & Greens Galette
With the weather warming and picnic season nearly here, I wanted to make a galette that could be an easy, tasty vehicle for some cheese, to take on my next outdoor adventure. I tend to avoid pastry recipes as I’m never precise enough to make them work, but I thought that a galette would be forgiving enough for even my skills. I featured Ragstone on this dish as it’s bright and creamy which I thought would contrast nicely with the load of earthy, irony greens I had picked from the allotment. I was hoping to add some wild garlic or 3-cornered leeks to the mix to really dial up the seasonal spring element but I couldn’t get my hands on any sadly. You could use any greens available and play with different herbs. The pastry was toasty and flavourful and managed to hold the indulgent quantity of toppings I layered up over it. No soggy bottoms here!
INGREDIENTS
For the pastry
Plain wholegrain flour 150g
Rye flour 30g
Unsalted butter 135g
Pinch of salt
1 tsp of sugar
For the filling
Ricotta or Goat's Curd 200g
1 small onion finely chopped
3 farlic cloves finely chopped
Pinch of nutmeg
Juice of ½ lemon
3 eggs
A generous bunch of greens chopped
½ Ragstone (I ate the rest as I cooked)
METHOD
1- Pulse the flours, sugar and salt in a food processor or mixer. Then add chilled butter chunks and pulse the mix in the processor a few times until the pieces of butter are the size of baked beans. If the mix is warm at this point, cool it down in the fridge for 15 minutes. Otherwise, add a few tablespoons of cold water and carefully mix the dough. Mix the dough until you can gently knead it into a smooth ball, adding more water if necessary. This then needs to chill in the fridge for at least 45 minutes but can be left overnight until you’re ready to build your galette.
2- Heat the oven to 220 degrees.
3- Sautee your garlic in a pan and add the greens, seasoning to taste. Be careful not to overcook them at this stage. I turned the hob off and let the greens wilt in the residual heat so as not to have too wet a filling. Then, add the lemon juice with a pinch of nutmeg and season to taste. While this mix is cooling, crack on with rolling out the dough.
4- On a floured work surface, roll out the dough into a circle that’s about half a centimetre thick. Don’t worry too much about it being a perfect circle as you’ll be folding the outer edges in at a later stage and it can handle a rustic look. Things that I learned the hard way are to remember not to make the circle too big for your baking tray and to put the pastry disc onto a lined baking tray at this stage instead of when it’s laden with toppings…
5- Spread your ricotta or goat’s curd over the pastry, leaving an inch untouched round the circumference. Then add your greens on top of the layer of dairy.
6- Crack an egg into a small bowl and mix with a tablespoon of water. This is for an egg wash to give the pastry a nice shine. Brush the nude outer ring of pastry with the egg mix and then fold it in over the greens, pinching the pastry every 2 inches or so to secure the crust. If you’re like me, you’ll will be feeling smug now at how nice it’s starting to look.
7- Beat the remaining 2 eggs in a bowl and season. Then, carefully pour this mix over the greens and into the galette case. You can now add slices of Ragstone, creating a pretty pattern if you wish. Finally, use the rest of the egg wash to brush the galette crust.
8- Bake the galette in the oven at 220 degrees for 10 minutes. Then turn it down to 180 degrees and bake it for a further 25 minutes until it’s golden brown and with bubbling cheese. Resist temptation of cutting into it when it’s too hot as you’ll risk it collapsing in on itself. In 5-10 minutes, it will be perfectly warm and ready to eat.
