savory goat cheese parmesan galette recipe – use real butter (2024)

Recipe: savory goat cheese parmesan galette

I have a horrible habit of feeling like the whole day has gone to hell in a hand basket if I wake up late. And by late, I am talking about 7 am on a weekend… because I want to be on the trail by 6 am, see? [I’m pretty sure that was my dad’s doing because every weekend morning if my sister and I were not up and ready to go sailing by 7, he would come in and boom, “Are you going to waste your whole life away?!”] It’s not limited to mornings though. I missed a certain wildflower bloom while I was busy working on a major deadline. I met that bloody deadline. And yet I couldn’t help but feel like the wildflower season was over. But it’s not over, as I discovered.

I felt like I needed to get outside and do my thing, and that hike helped to jolt me out of this ridiculous mindset that the flowers were done and summer nearly ended. No, we are in the thick of summer and it is a glorious summer at that. I’m feeling refreshed, recharged, invigorated. Sure, I missed the early bloomers, but now I get to enjoy the mid-season flowers – brilliant pink parry’s primroses and fireweed; little blue forget-me-nots just starting in the alpine basins; pink, red, magenta, cream, and yellow paintbrush; purple asters, yellow sunflowers. I felt so wiped out last week, but I think I was just decompressing and bouncing back.

[You can see the rest of the photos on the photo blog.] And believe it or not, I got some baking mojo back. Cooler, rainy weather helps with that and there has been a recipe I had been mulling over in my head for a year now. I love galettes, because they are easy and beautiful in that rustic way. Most galettes are sweet and while I enjoy fruity galettes, I really really had my heart set on a savory galette. I’ll take savory over sweet any day.

I found a nice recipe for a Parmesan galette pastry and tweaked it a little bit. It comes together quickly in a food processor and then sits in the refrigerator. For the filling, I chose a bunch of ingredients I had on hand. You could put any combination of wonderful flavors in this galette as long as they aren’t too soggy.

Roasted garlic has always appealed to me for its nutty and buttery texture. It plays beautifully with goat cheese. If you want a punch to the filling, then you could mince the raw garlic and mix it in the with goat cheese – letting it bake in the oven instead.

The bacon I’ve been using for the past several months is Applegate Farms’ Sunday Organic Bacon. I first used it when I hosted the POV Food, Inc. potluck. Jeremy and I took a taste of the bacon, looked at one another and said, “Wow!” The flavor and texture is excellent – my current favorite.

I like rolling my dough between two pieces of plastic wrap because it almost always sticks to my rolling pin. The edges don’t have to be perfectly intact either. It’s a galette – rustic. I like rustic because it basically means I can be a sloppy bum. The nice thing about rolling your dough out on plastic is that you can pick the whole thing up and slap it onto your parchment.

The dough was pliable, but I think I tend to add a teensy bit extra liquid because I hate working with super crumbly dough. If your dough breaks when you fold the edges, just press it together and call it good.

I did try making mini 3-inch galettes, but when I baked them, the edges unfurled and they looked like hand-molded tarts instead. They tasted fine though. The crust is crisp and flaky with a nice bite from the Parmesan. I think I could have added a second layer of zucchini to balance the creaminess of the goat cheese filling, but that’s just my preference. Two thumbs up and a waggy tail at the House of Butter. I really like the crust recipe. I’ll definitely be playing around with more savory galettes.

Savory Goat Cheese Parmesan Galette
[print recipe]
galette dough from here

dough
8 oz. unsalted butter, cubed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, finely grated
1/2 tsp salt
3 oz. cold water

Place the butter, flour, sugar, cheese, and salt in a food processor and pulse until the butter is pea-sized. With the processor running, quickly add all of the water until just barely combined (do not over-mix). Empty the contents of the processor onto a sheet of plastic wrap and press it into two flat disks about 4-inches across each. Wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.

filling
1 bulb garlic, roasted (I lop the top, drizzle olive oil and bake at 375°F for an hour, covered)
8 oz. goat cheese, crumbled
1 tsp fresh thyme, coarsely chopped
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 medium zucchini, sliced thin
olive oil
6 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
grated Parmesan cheese (extra)

Oven 400°F. Peel all of the roasted garlic cloves and chop or mash into a paste. Discard the skins. In a medium bowl, combine the roasted garlic, goat cheese, thyme, salt, and pepper and mix. In a small bowl, toss the zucchini slices with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper until coated. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll each disk out to a 1/8-inch thickness and 12-inches in diameter. I like to do this using a rolling pin while the dough is sandwiched between two sheets of plastic wrap because it can be kind of sticky/messy. When you get the right size and thickness, remove the top sheet of plastic and flip the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Remove the second sheet of plastic. Spread a layer of the goat cheese mixture in the center of the dough leaving about a 3-inch margin on the border. Top the cheese with zucchini slices, bacon, and an extra sprinkle of Parmesan. Fold the edges of the galette up and over the ingredients (see photo above). Bake 20-25 minutes or until the pastry has turned a golden brown. Makes 2 9-inch galettes.

August 3rd, 2010: 11:34 pm
filed under appetizers, baking, entertaining, meat, pastries, recipes, savory, vegetables