Tuesday, June 18, 2013

tuesdays with dorie: tomato and cheese galette


 for this weeks challenge, we have chosen to make tomato and cheese galettes.  sigh.  big sigh...tomatoes are not in season yet here in tennessee.  the spring weather was so cold and wet so late in the season that our tomato plants didn't go into the ground until the third week of may.  oh well, off to market i go.

in between stops, i ducked into my local publix supermarket.  generally, i can expect them to have a better than average selection of produce.  finding heirloom tomatoes shouldn't be a problem there and i didn't have time to go across town to whole foods to over pay for said tomatoes.  all i can say is that if tomatoes are not in season in tennessee, it is unlikely that tomatoes from ontario (yes, ontario in canada) will be better.  way to go publix!  at least 75% of what they had available was listed as produce of canada.  honestly, can we not grow our own tasteless hot house tomatoes?  do we really need to import them???  my options were severely limited, i chose a tomato from florida and made the decision to focus on mushrooms and onions-at least i knew they were going to have some flavor.

we have begun to go hostless here at tuesdays with dorie so to see the original recipes, buy the book!  or you can check it out on this heart of mine, blogger amy posted the recipes for the dough and the galette back in 2011 and it is word for word from the book.
 my first bit of tinkering was with the flour for the galette.  i have a bag of atta flour-indian flour made from durham wheat and wheat bran, and the only cornmeal i like to bake with is blue.

 when combined, it looks a little grey.

 i cut the butter in by hand and it looks a little lumpy when done properly.

 the recipe cautions that it is a soft dough.  trust me it is.  however, i think that is more due to the mixing instructions than the nature of the dough.  you are instructed to use sour cream or an equal portion of yogurt or buttermilk and to whisk it into the water.  however, the ingredient list suggests that you may not need all of the water.  so why would you combine the sour cream with all of the water?  it should tell you to add the sour cream (buttermilk in my case) and begin mixing and to add the water bit by bit as needed to get the proper consistency.  my dough was a little on the sticky side.  luckily, i know how to work with sticky dough, i partially froze it and worked with it cold.  while the dough chilled, i made the topping.

 one thing i do know, it is chanterelle season here in tennessee; we picked some last week.  these are a little past their prime but would be fine for the topping
.
 the herb garden is pumping out leaves all over the place so finding them was easy.  exit back door, snip, snip, snip... i quickly had basil, oregano, thyme and sage leaves.

 first step, caramelize some sweet onions.  to this i added a little garlic but was careful not to burn it.

 in went baby portobello mushrooms and the chanterelles.

 the herbs were last.  i let the filling sit and cool while i rolled out the dough.

 the texture of the whole grain flours gives the dough a nice crunch and a little color.

 close up you can see the dark flecks of blue cornmeal and little bits of wheat bran.

 first on was a layer of fontina and romano cheese.  i used about 3/4 of it on the bottom.  then came the flavorless florida tomatoes (sigh) and the onions and mushrooms.  the last bit of cheese was sprinkled over the top.

 honestly, the dough was too soft to do much with so i quickly folded it up and into the oven it went.

 it took the full 40 minutes to bake but it was nice and bubbly with just a little color.  the house smelled like pizza and it almost tasted like it until you got the crust-that made it taste like a tart.  a winner if you ask me, but next time, can we do this when tomatoes are in season?  please???

to see what the other bakers came up with, visit the tuesdays with dorie page!

8 comments:

  1. I would have loved to have tried the mushroom and onion version. (Tomatoes are definitely not in season up here yet - we have another month before that happens). It looks great.

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  2. yes, I also wondered that about mixing the sour cream and water together, and did the same as you instead. that's interesting about the blue corm meal...i have a bag that I bought at the farmers market the last time I visited santa fe, and keep forgetting that it's in the fridge! your galette sounds nice...way to jazz up a flavorless tomato.

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  3. This looks delicious! I too found it odd to mix the sour cream (I used yogurt)with the water - what a waste that would be. I added them separately. Ended up using only like three tablespoons of the water.

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  4. That looks fabulous. Love that you used onions and mushrooms! Yum! It is a little early here for tomatoes as well, but did find some good hot house.
    I think this would be good with a lot of different fillings.

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  5. I mixed the sour cream and water because Julia told me too! It worked fine in the end. I still think your mushroom version would be delicious, maybe you can save the other crust half until the summery tomatoes are out!

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  6. The mushrooms look delicious! And I'm intrigued by the blue cornmeal.

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  7. Tomatoes are not in season here in Maryland, either. I'll be trying this tart agin next month, once my garden starts producing.

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  8. I love the way your galette looks with all those mushrooms on top! Simply beautiful!

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