Galette – Savory Galette – Vegetables and cheese Galette

Galette is a French open pie pastry which is either made with a sweet fruit filling or a savory vegetable / cheese filling. After quite some time, I am back to blogging with my dear friends in Baking Partners. Baking partners is a group of enthusiastic bakers who join together every month to bake something unique and delicious. Swathi is the master mind of this group and this month’s challenge was provided by Suja of Kitchen Corner try it.

Coming to the recipe, Suja had suggested a sweet berry and peach filled galette. I had wanted to make a savory version as that is more preferred in my house. The pastry dough recipe is very versatile and can be used for any puff pastry recipe. I had made mine with part wheat, all purpose flour and semolina. I loved the use of the semolina in the recipe as it gave a subtle crunch along with the melt in the mouth texture. If making a sweet fruit filling, use cake flour instead of semolina.

Lately I have been almost substituting part whole wheat flour to all my baking recipes and it has been so far working out great. This is yet another recipe that I tried that way and I absolutely saw no difference in the texture of the pastry. I over all felt that the dough was very buttery for a savory galette and next time would use a little less of butter, but it would have worked great for the sweet galette.

 

Preparation time – 20 minutes plus 30 minutes of chilling time
Cooking time – 20 minutes plus about 40 minutes of baking time
Difficulty level – medium / intermediate
 

Ingredients to make Vegetables and cheese Galette – (makes 2, 7 inch Galette)

For the Pastry dough –

• Whole wheat flour – ½ cup
• All purpose flour – ½ cup
• Semolina / Fine rava / fine sooji – ½ cup
• Butter (unsalted) – 1 stick / ½ cup / 8 tbsp (chilled)
• Salt – ½ tsp
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Ice cold water – 4 tbsp (more or less depending on the dough consistency)

For the Vegetable and cheese filling –

• Onion – ½ cup (finely chopped)
• Bell pepper – ½ cup (finely chopped)
• Carrots – 1 cup (finely chopped)
• Paneer – 1 cup (cut into small cubes)
• Red chili powder – 1 tsp
• Garam masala – ½ tsp
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – 1 tbsp

 

Procedure to make Vegetables and cheese Galette –

To make the Pastry Dough –

• I made the dough in the food processor. Add all the flours in the bowl of the processor along with sugar and salt and give it a quick mix.
• Chop the chilled butter into small cubes and add it to the bowl. Pulse it for few times until the butter gets incorporated into the flour and forms a crumbly mixture. Make sure that you don’t over mix the dough. The butter should be visible as tiny specks throughout and the dough should appear crumbly and coarse.

• At this stage, add the ice water, one tbsp at a time and pulse again until the dough comes together as a ball. I needed all the 4 tbsp of water, but you might need more or less.

• Quickly drop the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and form a small rectangle. Fold the dough like an envelope by folding the top and bottom towards the center and tucking in the sides and form a neat square.

• Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least ½ hour.

To make the filling –

• Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onions until translucent. Now add the bell pepper and the carrots and cook until the carrots are slightly soft.
• Add the salt, red chili powder and garam masala and let it fry for a minute more.
• Add the paneer pieces in the end and give it a gentle mix to combine.
• Let the filling cool down to room temperature.

Shaping and Baking the Galette –

• Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment or aluminum foil.
• Remove the pastry dough from the refrigerator and place it on a lightly floured surface.
• Divide the dough into two. Working with one part at a time, quickly roll the dough out to a circle about 1/8th inch thick. You could then use a plate to cut it out into a neat circle. I skipped this step as I did not want to waste the end pieces. I rolled it as even as I could and then marked an inner circle to place the filling leaving about a 1 ½ inch skirt.

• Carefully transfer the rolled out pastry onto the baking sheet and evenly place the filling within the marked inner circle.

• Now carefully fold the outer edge overlapping one another to form pleats.

• Repeat the same with the second piece of dough. Brush the top of the dough with milk (or egg wash) and bake for about 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown.
• Cool on the pan for about 10 minutes and then carefully shift to cooling tray.
• Enjoy the melt in the mouth savory galette with a bowl of soup on side.