By now, you’ve probably heard me (or read me) going on about the principles of healthy eating a few times already and how balance, moderation and variety should be at the core of our diet. Well, this pear galette is one of those recipes that will need a bit of balancing out on your next meals, but Christmas is getting closer, and it is definitely one of those special occasions where we can switch off and allow ourselves a treat or two.
And what a treat this is! Pears and goat cheese are a match made in heaven, which, with the addition of aromatic onion and leek and syrupy, sweet Aceto balsamico reduction, will make your taste buds explode. And, of course, it won’t be the same without a crisp and crumbly shortcrust pastry that wraps it all up into a perfect Christmas gift for yourself and your loved ones!
What is a galette?
It originated in France in Norman times, when it was known under the name “gale”, which translates to flat cake. It is a dish with a pastry base topped with different kinds of fillings, both savoury and sweet ones, and it comes in many different shapes and sizes.
The pear galette we’ll be making today is also known as Crostata in Italy, a form of tart that doesn’t bake in a mould. Its base is made from shortcrust pastry, just slightly enclosing the filling, giving it a very rustic look. It is baked until crisp while the open filling gets nicely caramelised.
But that’s not all there is to galettes. Another version called Galette de Rois is traditionally prepared in France for Epiphany, a tradition shared by other countries like Spain (Roscon de Reyes) or the US (King cake), each of them with their own traditional recipe. The typical French Galette de Rois is a flat cake with a rich filling made with butter, sugar, cream, eggs and almonds trapped inside layers of puff pastry.
In Britanny, on the other hand, they are all about Galettes Bretonnes, where the base is actually a buckwheat pancake topped with a savoury filling, very often Emmental cheese, ham and runny egg (Galette complète).
Even though at first they might seem like a complicated dish, galettes are actually pretty straightforward to make. Once you get the hang of the dough, you will enter a whole new world of endless possibilities and combinations!
What will you need for this pear galette recipe?
What goes inside the dough?
- spelt flour 850
- wholegrain buckwheat flour
- unsalted butter
- egg yolk
- water
- salt
What goes into the filling?
- olive oil
- yellow onion
- leek
- white wine
- black olives
- goat cheese
- pears
- thyme sprigs
How do you make the shortcrust pastry?
As I mentioned earlier, for this type of galette, we will make the base out of the shortcrust pastry, a very satisfying dough that is really easy to make. In case you have never heard of it, it is the same pastry used for making pies, quiches and tarts.
Its name refers to its characteristic crumbly texture, given by the lack of a tight gluten structure, which makes the dough crumble into a thousand small pieces inside your mouth.
Traditionally, shortcrust pastry is made out of only three ingredients: flour, butter and water, with a usual ratio of 2:1, flour to butter and only a small amount of ice-cold water. A 2:1 ratio? You guessed it… That is a lot of fat!
I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t try to cut the amount of fat without it affecting the result in a negative way; that is, keeping the crumbliness and tastiness of the dough.
So, even though this shortcrust pastry recipe is not a classic one, it also has its recognisable crumbliness, more flavour thanks to the buckwheat flour, and considerably less fat. Let’s go through the steps needed to make your galette dough in the simplest, easiest way!
Making the dough
Something that will make this process much easier is to use a stand mixer, but don’t worry if you don’t have one; I’ll show you a way around it a bit further down the post.
Since the process of making shortcrust pastry needs to be fast, it is important to weigh out and prepare all the ingredients before the start. There is a couple of reason for this: first, allowing the butter to warm up will make the dough very difficult to handle (see ”Why do we add cold butter?), and secondly, kneading it for too long will cause the gluten to develop more than what we want, also making our life much harder later on.
Weigh out your butter, cut it into dice and put it straight back into the fridge. Prepare a jug of ice-cold water and also keep it in the fridge until you need it.
Sift and weigh out flours right inside the stand mixer bowl. Add salt and mix everything together using the lowest speed setting of your stand mixer. Then add the previously diced butter cubes to the flour mix, increasing the rotation speed.
After a minute, or when you get rice-like crumbles it is time to add the beaten egg yolk whisked together with the water (make sure no ice cubes make it into your bowl). Keep mixing for around half a minute or until you see the dough has come together.
Then, take it out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a few seconds (no more than one minute). Lastly, shape it into a flat-ish disc, wrap it with cling film and leave it to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Why do we add cold butter?
By rubbing the fat into the flour we are allowing the small flour particles to surround the fat, giving the pastry its crumbliness. But if the butter starts to melt in the process, it will coat those flour particles, which won’t be able to absorb water. And if the flour can’t absorb the water, it tends to be crumbly and hard to roll out.
Adding cold butter will help keep the butter solid through the process of handling the dough.
Why do we add ice-cold water?
Using ice-cold water will help lower the temperature of the mixture, again helping the butter not to melt while incorporating all the ingredients. Apart from the water temperature, the amount of water also plays an important role. It should just help bring the ingredients into a workable dough. By adding more water than necessary, it will be easier to roll out the dough, but we are also risking a harder texture.
What is the egg yolk for?
Even though egg yolk is not essential when making shortcrust pastry, it can improve its structure and taste. Because of the lower fat content of this shortcrust pastry, the egg yolk will help obtain the desired texture and add some colour and flavour to the dough. Additionally, with a water content of around 50%, it will add to the liquid part of the mixture, helping to bind the doug
What happens if I overwork the dough?
To make shortcrust pastry, you should handle the dough as quickly as possible and avoid kneading the dough too much. Overworking the dough will encourage the formation of gluten, resulting in a harder dough. While this is necessary in pasta making, for example, here it could play against you.
Why are we resting the dough?
While the dough rests in the fridge, we allow the water to diffuse into the structure and the gluten strands to relax and become easier to work with later in the process. It will also prevent it from shrinking when baking it in the oven.
How to build up the pear galette?
After the dough has rested for a minimum of 30 minutes and once the filling is ready (later in the text), we can roll out the dough. The easiest way to do it is by placing it between two layers of baking paper to prevent it from sticking to the worktop. Doing this, we also avoid adding more flour to the dough, which may change its taste and texture.
Roll it out to a thickness of 2-3mm, constantly rotating it to ensure it’s uniform all throughout. Once rolled, it should come to a disc of approximately 30 cm in diameter. Place the filling in the middle of the disk, leaving about 3,5 cm around the edges.
Fold the remaining dough towards the centre, applying a small layer of egg wash to the overlapping corners to ensure they stick together. After you’ve tucked in all the edges, brush the dough with egg wash and leave it to rest in the fridge for another 15 minutes.
When 15 minutes have passed, take your dough out of the fridge, brush the pear slices with olive oil, apply a second layer of egg wash and put it to bake for 45 minutes or until the dough is golden brown.
What if I don’t have a stand mixer?
If you don’t own this piece of equipment, or you simply want to put your cooking abilities to the test, I will guide you through the very delicate process of kneading the dough by hand.
Prepare all the ingredients as per indicated above. Sieve and mix your flours, together with salt, into a mixing bowl. Then add your diced butter and rub the mixture as if you were trying to separate two pieces of paper that got stuck together. This step is crucial because, as I explained earlier, this will ensure that the butter gets coated with the flour. Take too long, and the butter will start melting. If this happens, put the mix back in the fridge and wait for around 15 minutes before you keep going.
Once you get the rice-like crumbs I mentioned earlier, add the liquid little by little, mixing well throughout. Once the dough holds together, take it out onto a lightly floured surface and continue as explained before.
At this point, there’s only one thing left to do: give yourself a pat on the back. You did it!
How do you make the filling?
Start by peeling yellow onions and slicing them thin and even. Then, slice the leek in half, lengthwise, and rinse it under cold water, gently separating the layers to remove all the dirt that is stuck inside. Don’t skip this step, since removing the dirt afterwards is definitely more work. Slice the leek following the same thickness than the onions. Heat up a pan with olive oil and add the sliced onions and leek.
Start by sweating them on medium-high heat to encourage the release of water and salt them lightly. When they start being translucent, cover the pan with a lid and lower the temperature. By covering the veg, the steam will speed up the cooking process, avoiding the addition of more oil to the pan. After 10 minutes have passed and everything is tender and sweet, add the white wine and cook for another 3-4 minutes, or until all the liquid is reduced.
As the last step add the chopped olives off heat and incorporate well into the mix. The rest is easy; cut the goat cheese into your desired shape and slice the pears into 2-3 mm thick slices.
Choose a variety of pear that is more acidic than sweet, but ripe. I chose a variety called Carmen with a beautiful multi-colour skin. As for the goat cheese, a firmer type that will not release water when cooking will be the best option for this pear galette recipe.
