Strawberry & Rhubarb Galette

I had a bunch of fresh strawberries sitting on an old plate in a north window this morning as the sun came up. Dawnberries, I thought. And of course I had to bring my camera to where they sat. I can rarely leave anything this beautiful alone. The joy for me in cooking starts here, with beautiful fruit and vegetable shapes and colors. How shadows accentuate their plumpness. How water  makes their washed surfaces glisten.  How creases and dimples and stems and seeds tell the story of how they grew. What beauty crosses our paths in the ordinary, everyday act of putting a meal on the table!

(In the preceding post you’ll see how I came to choose this particular dish to share.)

Strawberry & Rhubarb Galette

For the dough, enough to make two 8-inch galettes:

(using a food processor)

• 3 T. sour cream (or yogurt or buttermilk)
• 1/3 cup (approximately) ice water
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 7 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 to 8 pieces

Stir the sour cream and 1/3 cup ice water together in a small bowl. Put the flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse to blend. Drop the butter pieces into the processor bowl and pulse 8 to 10 times, or until you have a consistency ranging from bread crumbs to pea-size pieces. With the machine running, pour the sour cream and water mixture through the feed tube and combine until the dough forms soft curds. (This will take just a short moment. You don’t want to over-mix, but you probably already knew that.)

Remove the dough from the processor and, separating it into two pieces, quickly shape each into a ball and then flatten to a disc. Wrap each separately in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours. (Alternately, put in the freezer for about 15 minutes.)

Remove from the refrigerator and with a light dusting of flour on your work surface, roll the disc into an 11-inch circle. (You may need to lift and add several light dustings of flour since the dough is very soft, and will roll out very thin.)

Storage of galette dough:  If you decide to only make one galette at a time, the remaining dough can stay in the refrigerator for a couple days; or, with parchment paper between them and wrapped air-tight, they can stay in the freezer for up to a month.

Put a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 400° F.

Ingredients to fill one 8-inch galette: 

(each galette will make 4-6 servings)

• 2 cups rhubarb, cut into 1/3- to 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 cup strawberries, cut into halves or quarters
• 3 T. flour
• 1/4 c. sugar (plus more for dusting)
• 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. cardamom
• 1 T. butter approximately

Combine the flour, sugar and spices in a cup. Mix the cut fruit in a bowl and toss with the sugar and spice mixture. Pile all into the center of the galette dough, leaving a border of approximately 2-inches or so. This will look like a lot of filling for such a tiny circle, but it’s just right, so pile high. Dot with little pieces of butter. Then, gather up the sides of the dough drawing them towards the center. They’ll naturally form little pleats and look much like a little ruffly drawstring purse when you’re done. Using a pastry brush, brush on water around the upper edges of the dough and sprinkle (as liberally as you like) with sugar.

Bake in a preheated 400° F for 35 to 40 minutes. (What I do during the last 10 minutes is brush just a little melted butter onto the fruit showing at the top so that it glistens when it comes out of the oven. Because fresh berries are much prettier than ones that have slumped in the oven, I also like to put a couple beautiful ones on the top before serving.)

Serving suggestion: If you want to go that extra step, or stretch this dessert to feed more mouths, the vanilla cardamom ice-cream I told you about in my very first post would be a wonderful accompaniment. I promised I’d share the recipe for that in an upcoming post.  And now, very soon, I will.

~ ~ ~

(For a printer-friendly version, click here.)

~~~