Shrooms

All this busyness is making me long for more extended kitchen time (and therefore more website time!) – it’s amazing how much better I feel when I am able to just putz – try new recipes, use up old strange treats in the fridge, eat leftovers for lunch instead of buying something.  Starting this weekend, my schedule will lighten some and the kitchen good times will begin again, just in time for summer. 

In the meantime, we’ve been mainly subsisting on takeout and the occasional batch of pancakes for dinner; a far cry from my last kitchen adventure.  A few weeks ago, we had some lovely friends in town from the East Coast and I cooked up a feast, the highlight of which was this mushroom galette.  Decadent, delish, delightful. Make it today:

Mushroom Galette adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Galette Dough:
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
12 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
1/3 to 1/2 cup ice water as needed

Fillin’:
Olive oil
1 large onion, cut into 1/2 inch dice
2 tsp minced rosemary
salt and freshly milled pepper
2 pinches red pepper flakes
1/2 lb portobello mushrooms
1 lb large white mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 Tbsp tomato paste*
2 cups vegetable broth
1 tsp aged red wine vinegar
1 T butter
2 T chopped parsley
2 T melted butter or beaten egg for glaze

The dough is the real star of this dish, I think.  I mean, how can you really go wrong when you’re alloting a stick and a half of butter?  To make the dough, mix the flour, salt, and sugar together in a food processor, then cut in the butter, leaving some pea-sized chunks. Sprinkle the ice water over the top by the tablespoon and toss it with the flour mixture until you can bring the dough together into a ball.  Press it into a disk and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Lightly flour the counter and roll dough into 14 inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Transfer it to a cookie sheet without sides, because it will be larger than the pan until you fold the edges over the filling.

For the filling: Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet.  Add the onion and rosemary and cook over medium heat until the onion is lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Season 1/2 tsp salt , a little pepper, and the red pepper flakes. Remove to a bowl.  Heat 1 Tbsp oil in the same skillet over high heat and saute the mushrooms until browned (you may need to do two batches), then season with salt and pepper.  Combine with the onions and return everything to the pan.  Add the garlic and tomato paste diluted with a few spoonfuls of stock and the vinegar. Add the remaining stock, bring to a boil, then stir in the butter and the parsley. Cook for 5 minutes, then drain, reserving the juices.

Preheat oven to 400°. Mound the filling into the galette dough round, leaving a few inches border.  Loosely fold the dough over the filling and brush it with melted butter. Bake until the crust is browned, about 40 minutes. Heat any reserved juices and spoon them into the mushrooms.

*y’all.  I must digress here.  I found the most exciting little tip the other day.  You know when you buy a can of tomato paste and only use a spoonful?  Well.  You can use a can opener to open the other side of the can, creating a tube.  Then freeze it for a few hours, take it out and push the frozen paste out of the can.  You can then cut it into 1″ rounds (which comes out to about 1Tbsp apiece) and freeze them in a plastic bag.  Genius.

Anyway, this dish was delicious.  Along with the last of this season’s artichokes and some sauteed broccoli rabe, we had a nice homecooked (ahh) meal.  It was made during the tragic lens-got-sat-on-camera-dead era, before Chris bought me a new fancypants neato lens for my birthday, but luckily Lynelle was around to do the honors: