Mushroom galette

Yesterday as I drove the boys to school I noticed a thin scrim of ice on the pond across the road, and the hills and the fields were frosted white. Today, at the season’s last Westside Community Market, I picked up some gorgeous shitakes, cranberries, romanesco, and keepsake apples. Although I’ll miss the friendly faces of my community market I’m fortunate to have the Northside Winter Market and the DCFM Winter Market. GH warns me that snow showers are in the forecast for next week so I’m sure I’ll be grateful for the indoor warmth.

This mushrooms galette is a simple dinner but it does require some chopping and sauteing. Since I was chilled, and the hot apple cider and brandy hadn’t totally warmed me up, it was an activity that suited me just fine. I included a layer of those heavenly purple potatoes, a light layer of caramelized onions, a substantial layer of rosebud goat cheese followed by an equally robust layer of shitakes, and finally just a scattering of bell pepper and garlic all wrapped up in my standard galette crust (sans the sugar).

I served a composed salad of raw chioggia beet, romanesco, daikon, and dried cranberries each tossed in a dijon vinaigrette. It was tart, bitter, sweet, and toothsome…very enjoyable. I love the earthy flavor of beets and according to Wikipedia that flavor is caused by an organic compound in beets called geosmin, which literally translates to “earth smell”. Apparently we humans are very sensitive to geosmin…were able to smell it at concentrations as slight as 5 parts per trillion. I think this might explain why you either love beets or hate them.

This dinner was a big hit and GH thinks the leftover galette will make a tasty lunch come Monday. This post is part of Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blog Event…hosted this week by Kalyn herself. I get the honor to host WHB for the week of November 12 - 18. Check out the rules and schedule and join us.
Here’s the recipe…click on the title to get a printer-friendly version.
Crust
1 cup all purpose flour
¼ cup coarse ground cornmeal
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, diced
3 to 4 ounces milk with a teaspoon or so of yogurt mixed in
Put the flour, cornmeal, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with its blade. Process a second or two to combine. Add the diced, cold butter and pulse 3 or 4 times or until worked in coarsely. Add the milk/yogurt combo and pulse as you do it…only adding as much liquid as is necessary to get the dough to ball up. Remove the dough, wrap in saran, chill.
1 pound of fresh shitake mushrooms
1 small or medium onion
1 small bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
2 medium, waxy type, potatoes
Firm goat cheese
Peel the potatoes, place them in a pan with ½” of salted water. Bring the water to a boil and reduce the heat to simmer. Cover the pan and steam them for 15 minutes. Remove them from the pan and set them aside to cool.
Peal and chop the onion into slices. Sauté the onions on medium low heat until they brown and caramelize. remove from the pan and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
If your mushrooms need to be wiped off do so. Cut the stems off (I stash these in the freezer in my stock cache) and slice the mushrooms into strips. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in the sauté pan on medium-low and add the mushrooms. Salt them and allow them to cook down for 5 – 10 minutes, stirring as necessary. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Cut the top of the bell pepper off and slice it into thin rounds. Remove any trace of white pith on the slices. Sauté these with salt on medium high…ad some olive oil if necessary. Remove from pan once they soften some. Set aside.
Bash the garlic and peel it. Slice it into thin slices. Sauté as above on low heat for a few minutes. Remove from pan.
Slice the cooled potatoes into 1/4” thick slices. I placed mine on wax paper to make it easier to work with them later.
Slice the goat cheese as you did the potatoes.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll it out into a circle…about 15 – 18 inches in diameter. Transfer this to a baking sheet covered with parchment.
Arrange the potatoes in a circle on the center of the dough. Leave a 3 inch border around the potatoes…this is the dough that you will fold up to form the top crust. Layer on the onions, then the cheese, then the mushrooms, peppers and finally the garlic. Fold the edges of the dough up. Slide it into the oven and bake until the crust is golden brown…about 15 minutes or so.
Remove from the oven, slide it onto a cooling rack and let it cool for 10 minutes. Slice and serve.
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6 Responses to “Mushroom galette”
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Sounds quite delicious! I am absolutely drooling at the photos. Things like this are the types of things I’m just too lazy to make most of the time, but would love to eat if someone else made it. BTW, I’m kicking myself that I never thought to save the mushroom stems with the stock veggie, thanks for the tip.
Fantastic photos! Love mushrooms :)
I’m envious of the fresh shiitake. I could only get them dried here in the Philippines.
Thanks Kalyn!
Thanks JEP!
Gay, I love the dried too…such big robust flavor.
I lost the recipe that I used to use for a mushroom potato galette and found yours through Google. I gave your recipe a try last night, and wow! My husband couldn’t stop raving, declaring it “one of the best things that I have ever cooked.” We’ve been together for 22 years, so that’s saying something. Thanks for the great recipe, and I’ll be reading your blog faithfully from now on!
Amy, aren’t husbands the best. Thanks for the comment, you made my day!