Tomato galette with spelt pastry

This summer has been eventful to say the least. Many things happened, some of them happy and thrilling, some of them sad, most of them unexpected.

That’s how it is right? Life. With all its ups and downs, the mysterious ways in which things turn out well or bad sometimes. It’s the eternal struggle of keeping a balance between what’s important and what is trivial without getting overwhelmed with what’s going on around you or inside your head.

My head is full of ideas lately about different things I would like to do in the future and some of those things involve food. And talking about food,—this is why you came here for isn’t it?—let’s talk about this galette.

But first, let’s talk tomatoes. I don’t know what happened this year but the tomatoes have been incredible. Their flavor is fantastic, they’re so juicy and aromatic, I can’t stop eating them. Who cares if it’s September, and autumn is here, and blah blah blah. As long as I have tomatoes, it is still summer as far as I’m concerned. Besides, it’s been so hot these past few days in the Netherlands, it really is still summer.

This tomato galette is simply amazing. Not only because tomatoes are involved, not only because a dreamy sun-dried tomato paste is involved, but also because a spelt pastry is involved.

This pastry is a revelation. It’s so crumbly, tender and ever-so-slightly crispy in all the right ways on the edges, and the flavor is slightly nutty, earthy and buttery yet very light.

The filling is scrumptious as well. On the base of the galette, I added a paste made with dried cherry tomatoes from Santorini with a hint of fresh chilli and garlic that had a sweet and at the same time acidic flavor, I then sprinkled with some Greek dried oregano and laid thinly sliced fresh tomatoes on top. They were juicy, but not so that they made the pastry soggy, and deeply satisfying along with the woody flavor of fresh thyme that I added on top.

I paired the galette with burrata which if you don’t know yet, please go to your cheese shop or delicatessen and ask for it. Burrata (which means buttery in Italian) is a fresh Italian cheese made from an outer layer of mozzarella that is filled with cream and mozzarella curds that ooze out when you tear it open. It is one of the most spectacular cheeses I have ever eaten particularly because of its super rich, creamy and chewy texture, and its milky, slightly sour and sweet, buttery flavor that is, however, not at all overwhelming.

No matter which cheese you choose to pair it with, please make this galette. You won’t regret it.

Tomato galette with spelt pastry

A galette is a free-form tart that you don’t need to fuss too much over. You just fold the rolled-out pastry over the filling and you bake.

If you can’t find burrata, serve the galette with fresh buffalo mozzarella, a rich creamy ricotta, Greek manouri, or soft Greek feta.

To make the paste, I used sun-dried cherry tomatoes from Santorini that are not kept in olive oil. If you can only find sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, then omit the olive oil in the paste recipe, or add enough to achieve the desired texture of the paste.
You will have more than enough paste for the galette. Use the remaining paste to toss it with pasta and some parmesan, or smear it on top of some fatty pork chops and roast them in the oven.

Yield: 6 pieces

Ingredients

for the pastry dough
250 g white spelt flour (not wholemeal)
140 g unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
Pinch of salt
1 large egg yolk
1-2 Tbsp cold water

for the sun-dried tomato paste
15 sun-dried tomatoes (not in oil / if you use tomatoes in oil see notes above)
2 garlic cloves
1 fresh red chilli, sliced
½ tsp demerara or other raw cane sugar
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp olive oil

for the filling
2 fresh tomatoes, cut into 2mm slices
¼ tsp dried oregano
2-3 fresh thyme sprigs
Olive oil for drizzling

1 egg, beaten with a fork, for glazing the dough

Burrata, to serve

Special equipment: large food processor, plastic wrap, rolling pin, baking paper, rimmed baking sheet, small food processor, pastry brush


Preparation

for the pastry dough
• with a food processor
In a large food processor, add the flour, cold cubed butter and salt and process for a few seconds until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Then add the egg yolk and 1-2 Tbsp cold water and process in order to bring together the mixture into a dough that holds together in large chunks. Don’t over mix. Add 1 Tbsp of water to start, and see from there whether it needs more. You don’t want the dough to be wet.

• by hand
In a large bowl, add the flour, cold cubed butter and salt and, using two knives, a pastry cutter or your fingertips, cut it into the flour, until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Then add the egg yolk and 1-2 Tbsp cold water and mix with your hands, working quickly, until the dough holds together in large chunks. Add 1 Tbsp of water to start, and see from there whether it needs more. You don’t want the dough to be wet.

Empty the dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap, form a disk, cover it and place it in the refrigerator to chill, for 1½ hours.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap and discard the plastic wrap and place dough between two large sheets of baking paper. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into an approximately 30cm round, with a 5mm thickness. The dough should be somewhat pliable yet it will be a little stiff. If it tends to break apart when you roll it out, let it warm a bit before you try again. Place the rolled out dough, along with the baking papers, onto a rimmed baking sheet and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

for the sun-dried tomato paste
In the meantime, prepare the sun-dried tomato paste.
In a small food processor, add all the ingredients for the paste and whizz until you have a slightly chunky paste. It shouldn’t be smooth. Again, allow me to mention that if you are using sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, you will probably not need to add extra olive oil.

Preheat your oven to 180°C / 360F.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator, remove the top baking paper and smear evenly enough paste to cover the center of the round piece of dough, leaving a space around the edges of the pastry, about 5cm. See photo for reference. Sprinkle with the dried oregano, arrange the fresh tomato slices on top, making sure to cover the tomato paste, add a couple sprigs of thyme and drizzle a little olive oil over the tomato slices.
Fold the edges of the dough up and over the filling, making sure to seal any cracks. You can use the baking paper to pull and fold the dough over the filing.
Using a pastry brush, glaze the dough with the beaten egg.

Place the baking sheet on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for about 35 minutes until the pastry takes on a golden-brown color.
Take the galette out of the oven, leave to cool for 10 minutes and drizzle the filling with a little olive oil.

Serve with burrata sprinkled with some black pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

You can keep the galette for a day or two, covered, at room temperature but it is best eaten the same day.

Another tartine

Well, you didn’t think I’d leave you with only one tartine recipe did you? If you know me even just a little you’d know that wouldn’t happen. A bit of variety is always good, especially when it comes to tartines.

This tartine is as delicious as the last one, albeit a little less complicated. It is a tartine with a homemade Greek olive paste or pasta elias (πάστα ελιάς) as we call it in Greece, coeur de boeuf tomatoes and feta. The olives I used are from Kalamata, the region of Southern Greece famous for the production of olive oil and olives, and they are fruity and briny and everything a good olive should be, making this paste exceptionally flavorful.

No matter how much I love other cheeses, my one and only true love is and will always be feta. Whipped, in salads, on tartines, it elevates the flavor of dishes and gives them a rich, sharp, creamy quality.

Along with the sweet, sumptuous coeur de boeuf tomatoes oozing with freshness, the distinct salty flavor of olive from the paste with bursts of garlic and acidity from the capers and lemon, this tartine is absolutely divine.

I’m sure many of you can’t get enough of tomatoes right now and this tempting and simple option is ideal for those of you who want to enjoy the ever so beloved fruit of the summer to its fullest.

Tartines with Pasta Elias Kalamon (Kalamata Olive Paste), Coeur de Boeuf Tomato and Feta

Coeur de boeuf (ox heart) are what these tomatoes are called here in the Netherlands were I currently reside. I think they’re called beefsteak tomatoes in English-speaking countries. If you can’t find this variety, then go with any other juicy and sweet tomato you can get your hands on. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding them this time of year.

Choose a type of bread that can handle the weight of the ingredients that you'll put on top. Sourdough is ideal but any kind of bread with a crusty crust and a dense crumb will work.

Yield: 8 tartines / about 2 cups of olive paste

Ingredients
3 large coeur de boeuf (beefsteak) tomatoes, sliced
200 g Feta cheese
8 slices of good crusty bread (sourdough or multigrain)
Olive oil, to drizzle over the tartines
Freshly ground black pepper

for the pasta elias (olive paste)
170 g pitted Kalamata olives (about 1 full cup)
1 Tbsp capers, rinsed very well
2 anchovy fillets in oil, drained well
Grated zest of 1 small lemon
Juice of 1 small lemon
1 large garlic clove, crushed
Freshly ground black pepper, 3-4 grinds of the pepper mill
A handful of flat-leaf parsley (leaves and stems), roughly chopped
About 80 ml extra virgin olive oil, more or less to achieve the right consistency
Salt (if needed, I actually never need any)

Special equipment: small food processor, griddle pan (I use this one)


Preparation

for the olive paste
Add all the ingredients for the paste except the olive oil and salt in your food processor and blend until smooth, stopping the machine occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the motor running, add the olive oil little by little until you have a smooth paste, taking care to add enough oil to reach the right consistency. You don't want it to be runny nor too thick. Give the paste a taste, add salt if needed (I doubt it’ll need any as the capers and anchovies have enough salt) and set aside until ready to use.

You can keep the olive paste in the fridge, covered for 5-6 days.

Heat your griddle pan over high heat and grill the bread slices on both sides. Transfer them to a plate. Alternatively you can toast the bread in the oven or in a toaster.

Spread enough of the olive paste on the bread to cover it. Add some sliced tomatoes and crumble some feta cheese on top. Drizzle the tartines with a little olive oil and grind some black pepper over the top.
Serve immediately.

A tartine

Saturdays have been tartine days these past couple of weeks for S and me. We love them, we could practically live on them for the entire summer.

The combinations of different ingredients that you can use to make a tartine are endless and that’s my favorite part about them, but so is the fact that they’re so damn easy and filling. You can have lunch just by eating a couple and you wouldn’t feel like you ate a glorified sandwich.

I used regular peaches for the tartines but the wild (doughnut, Saturn) peaches were even more delicious.

If you put some thought into it, a little care and if your ingredients are seasonal and fresh, then a tartine can be spectacular. Allow me to say that these here were just that. Grilled peach, beetroot and blue cheese tartines with a walnut and garlic spread; they were seriously delicious and I’m not just saying that.

Apart from the obvious freshness and juiciness of the peaches that are in season and that you’d have to be insane not to be all over them, the earthy, mellow sweetness of the beetroot and the sheer scrumptiousness of the soft, rich blue cheese, the secret to these tartines is twofold. First, the grilling of the peaches that makes them soft and caramelized and charred and kind of smoky, and second, the walnut and garlic spread, so nutty and aromatic, that gives them an extraordinary depth of flavor.

Along with the crusty grilled bread and the crisp salad leaves there’s a beautiful balance of flavors and textures that make these tartines worthy of making again and again until the peach season comes to its end and you start looking for new and imaginative combinations.

Tartines of Grilled Peaches, Beetroot and Blue Cheese with Walnut and Garlic Spread
Adapted from Food & Travel

Use good bread otherwise there’s no point in making a tartine. No matter what you put on top of it, if the bread is not right, i.e. with a dense crumb and a crusty crust, then you got a failure on your hands. I used multi-grain bread.

Enjoy your tartines with a nice dry red wine such as a Beaujolais or a Syrah.

Yield: 6 tartines

Ingredients
6 large slices of good crusty bread (either sourdough or multi-grain)
3 firm and ripe peaches (not too ripe as they’ll fall apart while grilling), stoned and cut into 8 wedges
1 plus 2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 small beetroot, boiled, peeled and cut into thin slices
100 g blue cheese (I used Danish blue)
100 g frisée lettuce, roughly chopped
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

for the walnut and garlic spread
100 g walnuts
50 g bread (crumb and crust), cut into small pieces
85 ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, mashed
1 Tbsp red-wine vinegar
60 ml water
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, 3-4 grinds of the pepper mill

Special equipment: small food processor, griddle pan (I use this one)


Preparation

for the walnut and garlic spread
Add all the ingredients for the spread in your food processor, being careful not to add too much salt, and process until you have a chunky spread, stopping the machine occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Give it a taste, adjust the seasoning and set aside until ready to use.

You can keep it in the refrigerator, covered, for 2-3 days.

Heat your griddle pan over high heat and grill the bread slices on both sides. Transfer them to a plate.
Add the peach wedges to a small bowl and toss them with 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Grill the peaches for a couple of minutes on both sides, until they slightly soften and have griddle marks. Be careful not to grill them for too long because they’ll disintegrate.
Toss the frisée lettuce with 2 Tbsp of olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a bowl.
Toss the beetroot slices with 1 tsp olive oil in another bowl.

Spread enough of the walnut and garlic spread on the bread to cover it. Add the frisée lettuce and 2-3 wedges of grilled peach. Add 2-3 slices of beetroot and crumble the blue cheese on top.
Serve immediately.

More tartines:
Broccolini and Parmesan Tartines
Spinach and Feta Tartines

Homemade chèvre

If someone put a gun to my head and told me to pick between savory and sweet, I would definitely go for savory. No second thoughts. There are so many options with savory food, you can make anything your heart desires, from fish and meat to pasta and every kind of salad imaginable. You can be freer, you can improvise, cook on a whim, not worry about grams and egg sizes and baking pan dimensions.

I could never live without my favorite savory dishes but I can live without sweets, well, at least for a day or two. There is something you can make though, that with the right combination, can offer you the best of both worlds. Something that can be used both in savory and sweet dishes. That is of course chèvre aka goat’s cheese. [Chèvre means goat in French]

The tart flavor of goat milk is what makes this cheese unique and the tang is what makes it pair so well with spinach and beef but also with honey and fruits.

Soft, crumbly, moist goat’s cheese is so easy to make at home that it’s crazy not to try it. The freshness, the aroma, especially when still warm, is incomparable to the mass-produced goat’s cheeses that you find at your local supermarket.

In my humble opinion, chèvre is far better tasting than ricotta or similar soft cow’s milk cheeses as it is more complex, creamy and rich due to the fact that goat’s milk has more fat than cow’s milk. And when you are lucky enough to find goat’s buttermilk and add it to the mix, it gives the cheese even more depth of flavor.

I have made chèvre many times and it always disappears from the fridge in a matter of hours. We like to smear it onto freshly toasted baguette slices or homemade barley bread drizzled with Greek extra virgin olive oil. It’s a snack that can only be surpassed by juicy tomatoes on sourdough but let’s not go there yet.

As I stated in the beginning of this post, this cheese is versatile in every sense of the word. You can add it to spanakopita or tyropita along with some good Greek feta, to this tartine, or perhaps this smoked trout and lentil salad. Crumbling it on top of pizza is an excellent idea, but so is adding it in a sweet tart with pistachios and honey. You can add some herbs like rosemary or thyme to your freshly made, supple cheese and serve it alongside crostini or grissini, or add it to an omelette which will most probably equal to the simplest, tastiest lunch you’ve had in months.

It’s just a matter of waiting; waiting for the whey to drip out, waiting for the cheese to dry. You will have to be patient, but in the end you will be rewarded with the clean, tangy taste of fresh, homemade chèvre.

Homemade Chèvre - Goat’s Cheese

The process of making this cheese is very easy but you will need a thermometer. It really helps and, if you cook a lot, it’s a good idea to buy one.

If you can’t find goat’s buttermilk which luckily I did, use cow’s buttermilk.

If you want a creamy consistency then I would advise you to let the cheese drain for 1 hour. After 2 hours it will be semi-soft and after 4 hours it will be very crumbly. Experiment, and if you end up with a more dry cheese than you’d prefer, add the whey back to the cheese, about ½ tsp at a time, folding it in until you reach the desired consistency.

Yield: about 300 g

Ingredients
750 ml fresh goat’s milk
500 ml fresh goat’s (or cow's if you can't find it) buttermilk
Juice of 1 lemon (about 60 ml)
½ tsp fine sea salt

Special equipment: candy/deep-frying thermometer, large cheesecloth or muslin cloth, fine sieve or colander


Preparation
In a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the milk and buttermilk and attach the thermometer to the pan. Heat over medium-high heat and bring the milk to a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius / 175 Fahrenheit. It will take about 10 minutes to reach that temperature and at this point, the milk should bubble and start to curdle. If not, leave it on the heat until it does but don’t allow it to come to the boil.

Take it off the heat and add the lemon juice. Lightly stir with a spatula and you’ll clearly see it curdling. Don’t stir anymore and allow the temperature to drop to 55-60 degrees Celsius / 130-140 Fahrenheit. It will take about ½ hour and the curds will thicken as the temperature drops.

Line a fine sieve (or colander) with cheese or muslin cloth and set it over a large bowl to catch the whey. Slowly pour the curds into the cloth and drain the whey into the bowl. You can either save the whey for another use or throw it away. It would be good to throw it away after your cheese is ready in case it turns out too dry. By adding whey back into it, it will become creamy. Tie the top of the cheesecloth with baker’s twine, as close to the cheese and as tight as possible, and hang it somewhere in your kitchen over a bowl to catch the drippings.

Leave it for about 2 hours to have a proper chèvre consistency. (Or read notes above the ingredients list for alternatives).
Untie the twine, open the cloth and remove the cheese carefully. At this point, you can add your herbs and salt stirring them into the cheese or if you don’t want to mess with the nice ball of cheese, simply sprinkle salt over the top.

You can keep it in the fridge, inside a plate and covered with plastic wrap, for up to 1 week but if you’re anything like us, it will not last more than a day or two. Having said that, the flavor of the cheese will intensify after a couple of days in the fridge so perhaps the second time you make it, it would be worth it to leave it there to see the difference in taste.